Deliverance
by DatNookieThang
Summary: "God would have been kind if He had given me a woman like you for a daughter." Anika has finally delivered herself from the Lyons & found love with Malcolm DeVeaux, but a chance encounter changes everybody's lives forever. Ch. 9 - with her child on the way, Anika finally makes peace in her heart over Cookie. Takes place roughly a year after ep 2.09. It's a wrap - thanks for reading
1. Baby, What's Your Phone Number?

Running into the Lyons on Hakeem's 21st birthday, Anika Calhoun was painfully reminded that she had three connections to this toxic, miserable family. She had been engaged to Lucious, the head of the Lyon family, and had a sexual relationship with Hakeem, the youngest Lyon son. The matriarch, Cookie Lyon, was the now-remarried wife of Anika's ex-fiancee, Lucious, and the former flame of Anika's new husband, Malcolm. It was enough to make anybody's head hurt.

"We can leave." It was Malcolm DeVeaux's job to study things. He had spotted the Lyons even before Anika had. While his split with Cookie had been amicable, he had no more desire to talk to any of them than Anika did. "I can tell everybody that you don't feel good, and we can go home."

"No. We can't do that." The Columbia University cadre was due to meet in the back banquet room to welcome the newest members of their Navy ROTC staff. Only the good word of Malcolm's former commander, a master chief who had served with Malcolm in Iraq, had gotten Malcolm the position that brought him back to New York from Washington, D.C. The last thing Anika wanted was for Malcolm to start off on the wrong foot. But there was no way to get to the banquet room without passing the Lyons' table, and there was no way the Lyons would let either one of them go by without a confrontation.

Seeing them all together – Lucious, Cookie, Hakeem, Jamal, Andre and Rhonda – guaranteed a clash. Andre and Rhonda were tolerable separately, but a pain in the ass together. Jamal was a punk who went in whatever direction his mother went...unless his father was going in a different direction. Since Lucious and Cookie would be united in fuckery, Jamal would be even more extra than usual. And Hakeem? Anika glanced over at Malcolm, who was expecting a battle with Lucious. She didn't even want to think about her almost-stepson. All Anika wanted to do was get through this moment with her dignity and marriage still intact.

* * *

Anika's meltdown had been slow in coming, and it was hard to pinpoint when it started. The best guess was when she slept with Mimi Whiteman to secure a $250 million investor deal in order to get Lyon Dynasty off the ground. Mimi double crossed them all and stuck with Lucious and Empire. The double whammy of sleeping with Mimi _and_ failing to seal the deal was just too good for Cookie not to cut Anika with every chance she got, even though sleeping with Mimi had been Cookie's idea in the first place. Anika kept her head up and fired back her own shots at her ex-pimp whenever she could. Outwardly, she maintained her cool debutante demeanor. Inside, Anika bled to death slowly from a thousand invisible cuts.

" _Let me guess,"_ Cookie had mocked Anika the day she came to Cookie with news about Lucious's party. _"Those five job offers never happened?"_ As if sleeping with Lucious, choking her out and dismissing her from Lyon's Dynasty wasn't bad enough, someone let it slip to every major recording label in the country that Anika had been dismissed from both Empire _and_ Lyon Dynasty and why. The Lyons were too powerful to cross to take a chance on a pimped-out cradle-robber like Anika Calhoun. Even with Anika's work experience and education, every single company passed up on Anika, but it would be months before she finally learned why.

Cookie brought Anika back into the fold at the beginning of the Dynasty launch, only to drop her on her head yet again once a concert that Anika help bring into fruition turned out to be a resounding success. Lonely, lost, and feeling like she had nothing, her heart filled with joy when Hakeem came to see her one morning out of nowhere. He had been kidnapped and beaten by a group of thugs looking to extort his family. But Anika wouldn't learn that until much later. Hakeem wouldn't talk about it that day, and Anika was too busy getting her ass smacked and her hair pulled to push the matter. She had been so lonely over the past few weeks - nothing to do, nowhere to go and no one to talk to - so even bad company was better than no company at all.

Hakeem closing the door in her face a few days later when Anika stopped by to see him was humiliating enough, but it was nothing compared to the reaction he had when she informed him that she was pregnant. "Whatchu tellin' me for?" he demanded. Threats to keep the baby were pointless. The Lyons had already destroyed Anika's life; if she even thought about keeping her baby, Cookie and Lucious would destroy her _thoughts_. Threats to terminate the pregnancy were equally pointless since Hakeem didn't want the baby anyway.

A few days after Anika had her abortion, the entertainment world was abuzz with the latest Empire news: not only was Lyon Dynasty going to reunite with Empire, Lucious and Cookie were getting remarried. Anika went to her family home under the guise of needing some old pictures from her bedroom. What she really wanted was her father's pistol. Anika's jumbled, blurred mind was filled with fantasies of killing Hakeem, then Lucious, then herself - and all of this right in front of Cookie. She wanted Cookie to suffer. Even after abandoning her for 17 years, dumping her when she came out of prison, firing her for hooking up with Malcolm, and everything else, Cookie was going to flip Anika the final "fuck you" by remarrying Lucious. For the past six years, Anika had given her life to Empire and her love to Lucious, only to see both snatched away from her. If Anika could ruin Cookie's life on her way out of her own, she would have the ultimate victory over that bitch.

Anika never found her father's gun, but she did find her mother's painkillers. The last thing Anika wanted was for her family to come across her body, but Anika didn't dare risk taking the pills out of the house. She needed her pain to end _now_ , so Anika told her mother she was going to take a quick nap while rush hour traffic settled, then went upstairs to her bedroom and into the adjoining bathroom. There, Anika swallowed every pill in the bottle and went to lie down. That day, Anika had nothing left to give and nobody to give it to even if she did. No job. No man. No children. No friends. No reason to live anymore.

Anika didn't drift into a peaceful sleep after swallowing the medication like she thought she would. Instead, she was seized with cramps and vomiting almost immediately. Her mouth was so full of spit and puke that she couldn't even call for help. Her mother rushed into the bedroom at the sound of Anika beating her head against the floor from above, choking and seized with excruciating pain. Only the presence of Anika's father, Dr. Stanley Calhoun, prevented Anika from suffering a slow, agonizing death on the floor in her childhood bedroom.

Anika could no more kill herself correctly than she could dyke right. Over the sound of the ambulance and the sobbing and the chatter, Anika could swear she heard Cookie's laughter.

* * *

Before taking two weeks vacation in the Cayman Islands for "exhaustion," Anika's doctor explained that it might take a few weeks before the medications she was prescribing would began to take effect. Anika felt the results right away. She spent most of her time on the island sleeping, but Anika's mind was clear by the time she returned to the United States. Anika still had nothing to do and no one to live for, but at least there was little chance that she would blow somebody's head off over it.

Three weeks later, Anika was rushed back to the emergency room. She had developed the potentially life-threatening Lamotrigine rash, which showed that she was seriously allergic to the mood-stabilizing medication. A battery of tests would keep Anika in the hospital for nearly a week. She bumped into Malcolm on the third day.

As Empire's former head of security, Malcolm and Anika's paths rarely crossed – and when they did, Malcolm didn't like Anika, who had drugged a recovering addict before a concert just to make Cookie look bad. Anika had already defected to Creedmoor Records by the time Malcolm hooked up with Cookie, so Malcolm's memories of Anika were limited. His recollection of the former A&R was a woman who was always regal and composed, the very personification of poise and grace. Here and now, Anika was nervous and twitchy, with her eyes constantly blinking and her hands forever fidgeting. Her skin was sallow and her nails were bitten so far down that they were crusted with blood.

After exchanging pleasantries, Malcolm politely asked Anika if she wanted to walk with him to the maternity ward to see his new nephew. "We haven't had a boy born in our family since me," Malcolm explained as they walked down the hall. "That was over 40 years ago."

"Really?" Malcolm looked so much younger, but he was Anika's senior by a decade or so.

"Yep. All of the babies born after me were girls."

Before they even made it all the way to the looking glass, Malcolm could sense that he had made a mistake. Malcolm didn't even really pay attention to the blogs, and even _he_ knew the rumors about why Empire's former head of A &R was blacklisted from every major recording label in the country. It didn't take a genius to figure out why the unemployed record executive was weeping in front of a nursery full of newborns, although Malcolm had one crucial fact wrong: he thought that Anika had aborted Lucious's baby, not Hakeem's.

Malcolm helped Anika back to her hospital room, where Anika spent nearly 20 minutes either crying or talking in a stream of chatter. "I'm sorry," she kept saying every five minutes or so. "I'm just going on and on about Empire and Lyon Dynasty..."

"It's okay," Malcolm would say, and then Anika would start all over again. Although Malcolm thought that it would be better for her to talk to a trained professional, Malcolm saw that the longer Anika talked, the calmer and more coherent she became. Anika had also given Malcolm a lot to digest. While Lucious's antics were no surprise, Malcolm was sad to hear about Cookie's transformation from a smart, savvy businesswoman to the cruel troll she'd apparently become – and a fairly stupid troll at that. Potentially hiring the men who kidnapped her child was the dumbest thing Malcolm had ever heard of, and he was surprised that Cookie would fall for anybody making that suggestion. ("Hell, I grew up rich," Anika commented, "and even I know that was a dumb idea.")

Pissing off the former A&R of a company one was trying to topple wasn't very smart, either. But Anika seemed to have no fight left in her. "I'm so tired, Malcolm," Anika said for the third or fourth time, still not understanding what all had happened or why Cookie hated her so much. "It's just that music is in my blood. I can't imagine my life without it."

Malcolm was only half-listening to Anika by this time, but a seed had been planted in his mind. "If you can't produce music," he suggested, "why not produce the music makers?"

"You mean teach?" The idea had never crossed Anika's mind before, but hadn't Anika always said that her most influential teacher had been her high school choir instructor? Mrs. O'Neal had died around Anika's third year at Empire, and Anika was so heartbroken that Lucious, who had been her boyfriend for about a year by then, escorted her to Cayman for the funeral.

"Why not?" Malcolm asked. "There has to be some sort of alternative teacher certification program you can go through." Lord knew teaching was both exhausting and ego-stroking, which was exactly what Anika Calhoun needed. Anika was the kind of woman who needed goals to meet and exceed. There had to be projects and products and results and work to wear her out, and she had to be the best. Why not give all that effort to teaching, rather than making spoiled, rich entertainers richer? "I can see you up at the Fame school banging a cane in the ground or something."

Anika laughed for the first time in what felt like years. "That's dance, silly."

"You didn't have to take dance at...where'd you go to college again?"

"BA from Julliard, MBA from Columbia." Anika shrugged when she saw how impressed Malcolm was. "Not that big a deal."

"It is when it took you seven years just to get an general studies undergrad degree," Malcolm admired. "But that's because I went to the navy straight out of high school."

"I didn't know you had a college degree," Anika said.

"What, you thought I was just some muscle-head SEAL?"

"No, not at all. But I thought all people in the military with degrees were officers?" Anika remembered Malcolm explaining the difference to Lucious between an officer and a non-commissioned officer, and that Malcolm had been an enlisted sailor.

Malcolm shook his head. "It's actually pretty hard to get through the higher ranks without one. When it came down to the final selections to make chief – chief petty officer," Malcolm clarified, "the other sailor was more qualified, I would say. But I had a college degree and he didn't."

Anika nodded. "That's like with me and my master's. I've never really used it, but my dad always said it's better to have it and not need it..."

"...than to need it and not have it," Malcolm finished, smiling.

"Why didn't you through your university's ROTC program and come out an officer?"

"That's a long story." As time went by, Malcolm had Anika cracking up with a number of old navy stories. _("Half-day? I was like, 'hell, yeah!' I didn't know they meant 12 hours...")_ Anika had plenty of tales of bad recitals, botched auditions, bum notes and bombed performances. _("I was just belting my little heart out, singing in the key of U-Flat...")_ It wasn't until Malcolm's cell phone went off that he realized that he'd been there for over an hour. "My sister!" Malcolm had left her room to get her a Sunkist and never returned. "I have to get out of here before she kills me."

"Are you coming back tomorrow?" Anika blurted, then bit her lip.

"No, I go back to D.C. tonight."

"Oh." Anika tried to hide her disappointment on her face as she turned to the window. God, she sounded so desperate! It wasn't like she was asking Malcolm out for a date or anything. It was just Malcolm was so funny, and she felt so much better talking to him...

"What's your phone number?" Malcolm meant to say _e-mail address,_ but there he was putting Anika's number into his contacts. When he leaned in to hug Anika goodbye, she smelled so good that Malcolm was propelled to kiss her cheek. Anika looked up at Malcolm in surprise. "I..."

Anika's heart was beating so loudly that Malcolm could hear it. "I'm sorry, Anika. I shouldn't have-"

"No! It's-it's okay." A lifetime ago, Anika once overheard Cookie telling Porsha that Malcolm ate pussy like a starving man. The very thought make Anika grow dizzy as her cheeks turned bright red. She wondered what Malcolm's lips would feel like on other parts of her body. "Um..."

A knock on the door brought them back to earth. It was Anika's mother, who had seen and heard all. "Mom, this is Malcolm." Anika lowered her eyes and pursed her lips to keep from smiling. "Malcolm, this is my mother..."

Malcolm smiled as he introduced himself. The smile on Mrs. Calhoun's face screamed _blood sacrifice in exchange for handsome son-in-law._ "Mom," Malcolm heard Anika saying as he left. "He's just a friend." A generous title, seeing that Malcolm and Anika were strangers just two hours ago.

* * *

Malcolm wasn't as starved for human interaction as Anika was, but the silence in his apartment could be overwhelming. He texted Anika the next day to check up on her. Anika texted him back to tell him that her tests were clear. From there, the two off them just wound up staying in touch - an email here, a text there, a voicemail left during hours that no sane person would ever be talking on the phone.

It turned out that Malcolm and Anika were both avid gamers, so they bought headsets and friended each other's Xbox and Steam accounts. Between hacking and slashing and looting, they came up with far better things to talk about than Lyon Dynasty or Empire.

 _"...movie was awful. I hate military movies, and war movies are the worst..."_

 _"...everything goes right, I should finish my certification in a year, but then there's this program called the Teaching Fellows..."_

 _"...enlisted in the Navy Reserves, and I can still max out all the PT tests, so I don't think..._

 _"...12 hours from my first master's degree, so - did you just snipe me?_ _ **Did you just snipe me!?"**_

Malcolm's security job placed him in New York often, which gave him a number of opportunities to visit Anika. He never spent the night with her, though, because Anika never offered. The last time Malcolm visited her, which was the first time she let him into her apartment, Anika had to put her hands up and physically push herself from his arms. "It's not that I don't want this, Malcolm," she explained. "It's just..."

"You don't owe me an explanation," Malcolm assured, even though he was hard enough to explode. He never visited Anika with the expectation that she would sleep with him, but it didn't stop him from _hoping_ that she would. Anika, on the other hand, was still working to build her self-esteem back up, and it took every ounce of Anika's self-control not to sleep with Malcolm. At any other time in her life, Anika would have felt obligated to at least suck Malcolm off before he left her apartment, just to offset the inconvenience of not sleeping with him. But now? Let Malcolm get himself off, just like Anika had to do as soon as he left her apartment.

* * *

Just as Malcolm predicted, Anika began to shine again as she made her way through teacher certification classes, choosing a university-based alt cert program at City College. She spoke tentatively about taking additional hours to earn a second master's degree in education, which Malcolm encouraged her to do. He spoke tentatively about leaving his security job for a position as a naval ROTC instructor at George Washington University, which Anika ordered him to do.

When Malcolm was presented with a university battalion crest the first day of the fall semester, he gifted it to Anika. She wore it as a good luck charm during every one of her finals, her certification exams, and her interviews at a number of schools for her student teaching semester. By the new year, Anika knew the difference between a PT, a PX and an FTX, and Malcolm could recall Maslov's hierarchy of needs and how to pronounce the name Gagné.

The odd thing about Anika and Malcolm's budding romance was that it caused them to develop outside relationships. Malcolm developed a small, but solid group of friends at GWU that he hung out with regularly. Anika, the only student teacher at LaGuardia High School, was embraced by the instructors in her section. The two of them spoke less, but it seemed to make them closer than ever. Every rare moment spent on the phone was special. Every text message made them smile. Every picture was saved - field trips, training exercises, teachers lounge selfies and cadre shots. Anika longed to send Malcolm a couple of sexy photos, but it would be the end of her teaching career if they were ever discovered.

Around the time Anika was finishing her student teaching, three dozen roses with a formal invite to GWU's annual Military Ball was delivered to her home. "So we're chaperones or something?" she asked, fingering the flowers' wide petals. Anika couldn't remember the last time she was supposed to dress up and be pretty, and the only crowds Anika had consistently been around over the years were Empire crowds at Empire events.

"Nah. These are college kids. We're more like imprisoned guests." As the newest member of the cadre as well as a senior non-commissioned officer, Malcolm's presence was mandatory.

Anika had never been to a military ball before, but Malcolm was so insistent she be there that he'd paid for her ticket to D.C. "What's the dress code?"

"Formal. Fancier than church, but not as fancy as a debutante ball. Wear your pearls," Malcolm teased, knowing that Anika hadn't replaced the set that Cookie broke so long ago.

* * *

 _"Chief Petty Officer Malcolm DeVeaux and Miss Anika Calhoun."_

Malcolm hadn't said anything about a receiving line. "Just smile and say hello," Malcolm whispered to her. "Don't worry about ranks or anything like that." After being Hakeem's side piece for so long, it felt strange to be so publicly claimed. _"Chief! Chief!"_ they heard all night long, and Malcolm would introduce Anika to this cadet and that officer and the adjutant over there. It was just Malcolm's first year at GWU, but he was well respected by both the cadets and the cadre.

While mingling with the future naval officers of America, it hit Anika how young Hakeem had been when they were together. _I'm young enough to be some of their mothers,_ she thought, and she felt ashamed all over again. But Malcolm looked so handsome in his dress blues that Anika couldn't dwell on it for too long.

Even though she was dressed in a simple lavender ball gown, Anika was so breathtaking that even Malcolm inwardly did a double take. She was especially beautiful under the stars, where the two of them swayed in each other's arms at the call of _last dance_. Hours later, lying on Malcolm's bed wearing nothing but moonlight and sweat, Anika was exquisite.

At first, sex with Malcolm made Anika feel like she was under a microscope, with Malcolm examining every detail of every kiss and every touch he gave her. Anika tried her best to maintain her composure, but Malcolm saw right through her. "Just let go, okay?" Malcolm coaxed her. "I got you. I promise."

Malcolm wasn't a psychotic, middle-aged monster whose _say-my-name-you-nasty-bitch_ demands bordered on demeaning. He wasn't a barely-legal kid who equated good sex with how hard and fast he could pound her. And he wasn't one of the many nameless, faceless hookups Anika had briefly burned through before her first hospital stay. Malcolm was a _man_ – a stable, secure, well-adjusted man with a mind-blowing long stroke combined with a sick tongue game. Despite her efforts, it wasn't long until Anika was screaming Malcolm's name so loud and so often that she lost her voice. And Malcolm was just as impressed with Anika's skills. _"God-damn, girl..._ _ **shit**_ _!"_

Malcolm wanted to wait until Anika stopped trembling before he asked her any questions, but that wasn't going to happen any time soon. "Do you think we could spend some of the summer break together? We could take a vacation somewhere. Miami, Jamaica..."

"Ever been to the Cayman Islands?" Outside, Anika played it cool, but her heartbeat always gave her away. Malcolm didn't bust Anika for it, though. He just cuddled with her while she stroked his hair and kissed the scar over his eyebrow. Anika's heart was bursting with happiness. And Malcolm didn't feel so alone anymore.

* * *

Anika and Malcolm spent a week in Guyana, where Malcolm's family was from, then another week in Spain. They spent the rest of their time in Cayman. Anika's family owned land and property on the islands. Without her parents there, it almost felt like the two of them were living together on a huge stretch of beachfront property. They worked out together and apart, studied together and by themselves, argued and bickered and made up and made love until they were drained, but needing each other even more.

There was just one thing needling at Anika. One small thing that she couldn't get around, no matter how hard she tried. "Malcolm, do you love me?" she asked early one morning as they bathed together in the warm ocean water after one of their beach runs. Anika had sworn that she would never tell Malcolm she loved him before he said it to her, but she did. The words felt so natural on her lips that she said them almost daily. Malcolm always smiled and kissed her or slapped her butt and told her to say it again, but she never recalled him saying it back. Anika knew Malcolm loved her...thought he loved her...maybe he loved her. Did he?

"Of course I love you, Anika" Malcolm answered. "Why?"

Anika exhaled. She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath. "You never tell me you love me, Malcolm. Not in public or private or anywhere. I don't think you've ever said it once."

"I didn't know I needed to. You need to hear me say it?"

"Yeah, I do." Anika knew they were just words, and words really didn't mean anything. Lucious had told Anika all the time that he loved her. Hell, even Hakeem had said it once or twice, though they'd been having sex when he said it. Malcolm was the kind of man who believed in showing his woman that he loved her, not telling her. But Anika needed to hear those words so badly from Malcolm's lips that she couldn't stand to wait any longer.

"Okay, fine." Malcolm stood to his full height and bowed at the waist so low that his chest touched the water, making Anika laugh. "I love you, Anika Grace Calhoun. I love you, I like you, I'm in love with you. I'm crazy about you." Malcolm pulled Anika into his arms and kissed her neck. "I want you to have my baby," he whispered in her ear, and the hardness against her leg let Anika know that Malcolm was ready to start on that goal right then and there.

"Boy, you must be crazy." Anika splashed Malcolm playfully, only to be pulled into his arms again. "I wasn't put on this earth to be your baby mama. You want me to have your baby, then you need to make me your wife."

Malcolm didn't respond, opting to lean back and float on his back instead. With every second that stretched out in silence, Anika began to hurt more and more. "Well?" she said when far too much time had passed.

"Well, what?" Malcolm tossed back casually, his eyes still on the sky.

"What do you mean, 'well, what?'" Anika pushed herself away from Malcolm, who stood back up, wondering what had brought all this on. "You'll give me a baby, but you won't marry me?"

"I was just teasing you, Anika," Malcolm explained. "I know you don't want to have my baby."

"Yeah, but I don't want to be your girlfriend all my life, either!" Anika said hotly. "And I _do_ want to have your baby, Malcolm. Just not until we're married."

This was news to Malcolm. Anika had never mentioned having children before. Malcolm was under the impression that she didn't want any, and for good reason. "Anika, 10 minutes ago, we were talking about expanding your lung capacity in water. Now you want to get married? _And_ you want to have my baby?"

"Why not? We can get married in one day here in Cayman. And you're talking about babies like I'm 22 or something. What if we have trouble..." Anika's voice trailed off. They'd never discussed her abortion, and Anika didn't want to think about that time in her life ever again.

"Anika, is this why you brought me here?" Malcolm asked, his voice growing hard. "You thought we'd do some kind of living together island experiment and I'd drop to one knee at end of this trip?"

There was no mistaking the _bitch-are-you-crazy_ look on Malcolm's face or the inflection in his voice. "Forget it, Malcolm!" Anika screamed. "Forget I said anything!"

Malcolm didn't even follow Anika as she ran into the house, trading the pounding of the ocean for the sound of the shower. There, she burst into tears, realizing that she'd fallen back into the same pattern as always. Old Anika, new Anika, Malcolm's Anika, Hakeem's Anika...she'd fallen too hard for a man, asking too much from him too soon, and humiliated herself all over again.

When Anika came out of the shower, red-eyed and shaking with anger, she found Malcolm sitting on the bed waiting to talk to her. "One day," he said aloud.

Anika brushed past Malcolm. He sounded so much like Lucious now that Anika could hardly stand the sight of him. _One day, one day, one day_...and one day never came. "When, Malcolm? Because if you think I'm moving to D.C. to shack up with you-"

"No, I mean _one day."_ Malcolm closed his laptop. "You're saying we can get married down here in just one day?"

Anika's heart began to race. Was he asking her to be sarcastic, or to kill time, or... "We'd have to go to the Passport office, and we have to find a Marriage Officer, but I can just call my uncle for that...just as long as we have the paperwork, then yeah."

"Okay."

"Okay, what?"

"Okay, call your uncle." Malcolm stood up and smiled. "Let's get married."

Anika screamed and jumped up and down until her towel fell off her body. She threw herself into Malcolm's arms, kissing his face over and over. "Are you serious?" she demanded, laughing at crying at the same time.

"I'm dead serious, Anika." Malcolm hadn't even thought about marrying Anika, but now it seemed like the best idea in the world. He was a grown-ass man who was gainfully employed, loaded with military benefits, and had the most wonderful woman in the world asking - well, demanding - to be his wife. Why wait? "Call your uncle and let's get everything straightened today so we can get married tomorrow."

 _"Tomorrow?"_ Anika was thinking more along the lines of at the end of their trip. "I was thinking we could invite our families and-"

"No. Tomorrow." Suddenly Malcolm found himself wanting to get married even more than Anika did. "I love you, Anika. I _love_ you." He'd said it more in one day that he had in a year. "We don't need a wedding. All we need is each other. Right?" he prompted when Anika didn't say anything.

 _Oh, my God. He's serious._ Anika couldn't breathe. As much as Anika hoped against hope that she wouldn't fall in love with Malcolm too soon, he'd stolen her heart for good the minute he kissed her cheek at the hospital so long ago. "Right," she agreed. "We don't. But I'm not changing my name," she added. Lucious had demanded that she become a Lyon before he would marry her. She'd grudgingly agreed back then. It would never happen again.

"As long as I can call you my wife, you can call yourself whatever you want." Malcolm pulled Anika's still-damp and naked body to his. "Sooo..." Malcolm drawled, replacing the tears on her face with kisses, "does this mean we can stop using condoms?"

"Sure does." Anika reached into the nightstand by her side of the bed and pulled out a shiny foil package. "Starting tomorrow."

* * *

Even after getting all the paperwork together and sitting down with her Uncle William, Anika worried that Malcolm would change his mind the next day. But Malcolm was true to his word. The following evening, Malcolm and Anika were married on the beach. Malcolm wore a set of slacks and a polo shirt, while Anika wore a blue sundress, no shoes, and a floral wreath in her hair. Malcolm had no ring, so he pinned his hard-earned SEAL trident on Anika's dress and promised that he would love, honor and cherish her until death did them part, _hoo_ -yah. Anika was so happy that she didn't tell Malcolm that his trident had ruined a $723 silk dress.

Like Malcolm, Anika didn't feel anxious or afraid during their ceremony. Undressing in his arms hours later, Anika felt secure for the first time in years. "Give me your baby, Malcolm," Anika whispered in his ear.

Malcolm laughed as he pulled his new wife close to him, then on top of him. "I'll try," he promised.

Anika didn't have a care in the world that night as she experienced nothing but wetness and warmth between herself and her husband for the very first time. But every morning would bring all of Anika's deepest fears to the front of her mind. Would Malcolm had eloped with her if he knew she'd slept with Lucious's youngest son? What would Malcolm do if the truth – the whole truth, not just drips and drops of tea on blogs – ever came out? And how would Anika be able to cope if Malcolm didn't want to be with her anymore because of her past? _How much does Malcolm_ _ **really**_ _love me?_

Their legal status now meant that Malcolm couldn't just up and leave her. But he could up and divorce her. All Anika could do now was pray that she was able to conceal her fears for as long as she possibly could, at least until either her questions were answered or she felt secure in knowing that they would never need to be asked.

* * *

"Who do you think is going to start trouble first?" Malcolm's voice cut into Anika's thoughts.

"Definitely Cookie," Anika was trying to sound casual, but Malcolm could hear the faint sound of Anika's island accent, which only pushed its way through when she was becoming upset. "If she sees you, she'll flirt. If she sees me with you, she'll throw shade and _still_ flirt." Even with all the time and effort Anika had put into rebuilding her career, self-esteem and sense of worth, Anika feared that a well-timed dagger from Cookie Lyon could reduce all that work to rubble. "You?"

"My bet is on the King of the Assholes." Malcolm deemed it safest to put his money on Lucious. If anything, Malcolm vowed to draw attention to himself to keep Lucious from attacking Anika. Malcolm would weather the slings and arrows from the Lyons, but he'd be damned if any of them would get away with taking shots at his wife, including Cookie. _Especially_ Cookie.

"Wanna bet on it?" Anika asked playfully.

Even for as long as they'd been together, it was impossible for Malcolm to know the depths of Anika's anxiety because he didn't know the full story. But Malcolm knew enough to know that this simple walk was about to turn into a trial by fire, and Anika was going to need backup. "Sure. Winner wakes up to slow head every morning for a week."

Anika stuck out her hand. "You have a bet, Mr. DeVeaux." Malcolm shook his wife's hand, then pulled her close to him for a quick kiss. Even though her legs were wobbly and she felt faint, Anika would be damned if she let any of these bastards run her away from anywhere she had the right to be. "Alright. Let's do this."

"Uhh...Anika?" Malcolm said before Anika could march off into battle single-handedly.

"What?"

Malcolm took Anika by her waist and drew her close. "You're my wife, Anika. So hold your head up high." Malcolm kissed the tip of her nose. "I love you, Nikki," Malcolm whispered, touching her forehead to his. "I love you so."

"I know." Still couldn't stop shaking, and her heart was pounding loudly. Still, Anika smiled, especially at the use of her nickname. She'd absolutely hated until Malcolm started to use it. Anika wiped her lipstick off Malcolm's lips with her thumb, then took his hand and squeezed it. "Let's go," Anika said. With her husband by her side and her confidence restored, Anika had all she needed to march head straight into the Lyons' den.

TBC

* * *

Notes: PT stands for physical training. PX stands for postal exchange (think of a military Walmart). FTX is field training exercise. Gagné is pronounced _gahn-YAY._


	2. Who's Gonna Save My Soul?

It was when Hakeem was surrounded by his family that he felt the most alone. Unlike Jamal and Andre, Hakeem had no memories of his mother. He'd only known her for two years, though he'd written her in prison nearly every week until the pretty girl from Empire's A&R department became a fixture in his life. _PLEASE WRITE BACK,_ he'd pleaded almost every week at the bottom of his letters, but the last one he had was dated on his 9th birthday.

A few months ago, Lucious confessed that he'd never mailed any of Hakeem's letters, and he'd intercepted the ones Cookie wrote to him. The only ones Hakeem ever got were the ones that Lucious missed. "I knew how you would fall in love with her, Hakeem, just like your brothers did. I didn't want you to experience that kind of loss."

"Loss?" How could Hakeem lose something he never had? For 17 years, all the anger and hatred Hakeem carried for Cookie was based on a bunch of lies his father told him. Andre and Jamal were just as shocked, but the two of them had memories and stories of Cookie. All Hakeem had for years was a picture of Cookie was holding Hakeem the day he was born. He still carried in his wallet, as if Cookie would disappear at any moment. In the end, Andre and Jamal had to drag Hakeem out of the room, kicking and screaming at Lucious. _"You stole her from me! You selfish motherfucker! Punk bitch!_ _ **I hate you**_ _!"_

Hakeem managed to break away from his brothers and took off in his truck, speeding through every red light while taking long swigs from the bottle of Hennessy he'd bought earlier that day. How he'd made it to Cookie's house without killing himself or anybody else was nothing short of a miracle. There, Hakeem collapsed in her arms and cried 17 years of tears in Cookie's arms. "I'm sorry, Mama. I'm sorry," he sobbed over and over, and Cookie held Hakeem until he drifted off to sleep for the first time since before she went away.

As cruel as it sounded, Lucious truly thought he was doing the right thing by cutting off his sons' access to their mother. _"So I've made mistakes,"_ Lucious had told Cookie on the day he asked her to marry him so long ago, back when he was afraid of dying alone. _"I'll spend the rest of my life fixing them. In the end, you'll understand the choices I made."_ On that, Lucious was right. Cookie did understand why Lucious had done the things he did – abandoning her, stealing the boys, breaking it off with Cookie in order to protect the IPO signing. And Lucious was doing the best he could to atone for his sins. But that didn't make it right, and it didn't take the pain away from Cookie or Hakeem, who would spend all his life feeling isolated from his family - more so, now that Cookie was back.

"...and I'm scared because I know I'm supposed to be at school, right?" Andre was telling everyone at the table about a day when he skipped school and came home, only to learn about the facts of life up close and personal. Like with most of the stories his parents and his brothers recounted, Andre's story had two main factors. One, Hakeem felt no connection to it. Two, the story was going to end with Andre getting his ass beat. At least this particular story was funny enough to keep Hakeem's attention. "But I'm _more_ scared because I'm thinking that Mom is getting beat up because of the fight they'd had that morning, and I'm not letting anybody hurt my mama. So I bust through the door, and _ohhhhh,_ my God..."

"Poor baby." Cookie reached out and squeezed her oldest son's hand above all the laughter. Cookie was probably the only woman in the history of their neighborhood who'd owned a bottle of anal lube before it could be discreetly ordered from Amazon. "Ain't no telling what you saw that day."

"I'll tell you what I saw! _Nekkid ass!_ I still see it in my nightmares!" Andre gave a comical shudder, and Cookie playfully pushed him upside the head. It was crazy to think about Andre, who was usually so cool and collected, being blinded by the sight of Lucious with his pants around his ankles, pounding away at their mother. Hakeem had the same experience just four days ago. "Knock next time," Lucious had told him, shrugging off Hakeem's _damnded-mine-eyes_ moment of featuring Cookie bent over Lucious's desk. "Better yet, don't come to my office during lunch when your mama's wearing a dress or a skirt." Left unsaid was that Cookie _always_ wore a dress or a skirt to work.

When Lucious announced at a family dinner that he and Cookie were getting married again, Andre had been all for it. He remembered the days when Lucious and Cookie were the couple that everyone in the neighborhood envied. Jamal, like the general public, thought Cookie was a damn fool to take Lucious back after everything he'd done to her, but eventually came around. Hakeem had no opinion on the second marriage since he had no memory of the first one. Like Jamal, however, he couldn't figure out why Cookie had agreed to marry Lucious again, not after all he'd done to destroy her.

"Because he needs me, Hakeem," was Cookie's reply when Hakeem dared to ask. She was staring out of a window when she spoke.

"Needs you for what?"

Cookie looked over at Hakeem and gave him a tiny smile, one that was loaded with a tired acceptance of the inevitable. "To be human," she answered, and she said nothing more.

Anyone could see how marriage had transformed Lucious from a greedy, controlling monster to the committed husband and father that Hakeem had never known. Gone were the outrageously expensive suits, ostentatious scarves and perfectly manicured nails. Lucious Lyon chilling in jeans and nondescript loafers with a drooling baby on his shoulder was something no one would ever think was possible except for his wife and two older sons. It was just one more sign of how Lucious was becoming a better man. "Not the new Lucious," Andre had corrected Hakeem once. "The old Lucious. You'll see."

But while it was obvious that Lucious was made better by Cookie, no one could tell whether the opposite was true. Cookie didn't say she married Lucious because she needed him, or even because she loved him. Cookie told Hakeem that she married Lucious because _he_ needed _her_. It sounded more like an arranged marriage than anything else. A partnership to reunite Lyon Dynasty and Empire, complete with a wedding ring. Nothing more, nothing less. And while Lucious regularly gushed about his wife, Cookie rarely spoke about her husband. Was Cookie really happy to be Lucious's wife again? It was impossible to tell, and Hakeem wasn't the only person who thought so.

"Anyway," Andre was saying. "I'm holding on for dear life – I don't know why – and Dad is swinging back and forth like Donkey Kong, knocking stuff over-"

"I didn't know it was Andre!" Lucious defended himself. "I thought we were being robbed! He was beating me all upside the head. Biting me, too! But you showed a lot of heart that day, son." Lucious said proudly, reaching over to give Andre a pound. Even though Lucious had no idea why Andre would think he would put a hand on his wife, he had to respect Andre's intentions.

"Yeah, well you showed a lot more ass than I showed heart. Anyway, Dad finally breaks my grip and he goes for his piece, right? Only it's in the cabinet next to Mom, so I'm thinking he's about to start attacking her again. I jump up to try to get back to him and suddenly I hear, ' _ **AN**_ _-DRE!"_ " Andre mimicked Cookie's voice perfectly. "And I look up – it's Mom!" Everyone at the table was laughing so hard that Andre had to wave his hands to let everyone know he wasn't finished. "She's half-hiding behind the mixer and now Dad's got a gun pointed at me-"

"So now it's nekkid ass _and_ titties." Hakeem observed wryly. Andre dropped his head into his hand as Jamal laughed even harder. Cookie was too far away to swat at Hakeem, but he was in the perfect position for a well placed kick to the shin.

"What'd you do then, baby?" Usually, Rhonda would be pissed that her husband was making so much noise that it woke up their daughter, but the story was so funny that Rhonda had to forgive her husband. And Lucious didn't seem to mind. He just kept rocking Andrea until she quieted down again, cramming her fist back into her mouth and looking so much like Hakeem when he'd been a baby, Andre couldn't help but think.

"What did I do!? Girrrrrl, I was outta there!" Andre made a gesture with his hands, shooting one in front of the other. "Couldn't _nobody_ catch me that day!"

"Wait a minute!" Jamal was having a flashback. "Was that the day you put me on the train back home by myself because it was an emergency?"

"It's not like I could go home! And I _told_ you to go home and tell Mom and Dad I was at Aunt Candace's house. Only this little fool told Mom and Dad I was at Aunt Carol's house-"

"And when your mama called Carol, she said Andre wasn't there-" Lucious finished.

"And that's when I got so scared." Cookie's smile faded. Even now, over 20 years later, she could remember how terrified she'd been when Carol told her that she hadn't seen Cookie's oldest son.

Andre reached for his mother's hand and kissed it. "But you didn't stay scared long, did you?"

"Sure didn't." Cookie's fear turned to rage in minutes. "Candace called me about 10 minutes later saying you were hiding at her house. And boy, if it hadn't have been a Friday..."

"Hadn't been a Friday, hell!" Lucious scoffed. "I had to hide my car keys from you to keep you from jumping in my truck and taking off."

"Wait," Rhonda interrupted. "Cookie, I thought you couldn't drive?"

"She couldn't!" Andre and Lucious said together, and everybody laughed so loud that the other patrons were beginning to glare at them. Not that they could do anything. The Lyon family could've easily bought and sold Chef's Table and everybody in it.

"Yeahhhh, that's my baby." Lucious leaned over and kissed Cookie on the cheek. "You gotta watch that about our grandbaby, Rhonda," Lucious added, handing Andrea to Cookie. "See, Jamal was one of those who lived by the spirit of the law. If I said, _'I don't want to see you outside,'_ then Jamal wasn't going to go outside."

"And Andre was one of those who lived by the letter of the law," Cookie chimed in, rocking Andrea to sleep in her arms. "If Lucious said _'I don't want to see you outside,'_ Andre made sure his father didn't see him while he was outside."

"Andre, you _stayed_ gettin' whupped," Jamal remembered. "One of the reasons why I was so good was because you kept getting in trouble. Hakeem, you just don't know how lucky you got it, boy. Mom, Dad, do you remember when Andre..."

 _Lucky_. Sure, Hakeem was lucky to have a mother in prison for 17 years, one that he'd hated through no fault of her own. Even though he felt lonely at times like this, it had been a good birthday overall. On his 18th birthday, Lucious had taken Hakeem and about 200 of his so-called friends out on the yacht, where they partied and drank and showered Hakeem with gifts he didn't even open. Three years later, he was having dinner with his closest family members: his parents, his two brothers, his sister-in-law, and, best of all, his new niece. Granted, Chef's Table was in an insanely expensive restaurant, but that was so the Lyons could eat in peace, not because they were wasting money.

Hakeem knew Jamal didn't mean anything by his careless comment, but after yet another one of "Andre's Ass-Whuppin' Chronicles", Hakeem felt himself growing bored. Looking out into the parking lot as he stretched, Hakeem saw a familiar sight: a silver truck with the name _Mona_ in navy blue. Hakeem remembered the day that truck first pulled in the parking lot, even though Empire's security detail had access to a fleet of luxury cars and trucks to drive. "Isn't that Malcolm's truck?" he asked out loud.

Five heads turned to where Hakeem was looking. Cookie's heart jumped in her throat. She knew that truck, of course, and she knew the man who was stepping out of the truck. For three and a half hours, Cookie had sang and laughed and held hands in that truck with that man as it made its way through the snowy Massachusetts mountains. _Sigonella. S-i-g-o-n-e-l-l-a._ Malcolm had joked that he was going to name his first daughter after the naval base where he'd been born. She didn't know why that popped up in her head all of a sudden.

Lucious, along with everyone else, looked towards the door. "Yeah, that's that raggedy piece of tin." Secretly, Lucious had never forgiven that blue-black bastard for sleeping with his wife, and a small part of him still hadn't forgiven Cookie. He knew it was irrational, but Lucious felt betrayed when Porsha let it slip that Cookie had gone off to the Berkshires with the head of his security crew.

 _"Why did you have to go off to the woods with a fucking Boy Scout? I'm supposed to be your only man, Cookie!"_

" _That was 30 years ago, Lucious! You could've been my only man if you hadn't divorced me, you son of a bitch!"_

Shortly before they remarried, Lucious admitted to Cookie once that he actually respected Malcolm. "Yeah, I really liked ol' Blackie. He was the only one who stood up to me like a man." Like Cookie and her many light-skinned celebrity insults for Anika, Lucious had no end of names he had for Malcolm: Tar Baby, Smoke, Shine, Eggplant. Lucious understood better than anybody why Malcolm would take a chance with his boss's ex-wife, even if it was hazardous to his health. The rest of Cookie's men only lasted for a couple of dates before Lucious made it known one way or another that he still considered Cookie to be his, and that it would be best for them to move along. They always did.

Just as Malcolm and his date were about to walk towards them, the couple stopped, and the woman he was with whispered something in Malcolm's ear. Malcolm cupped her chin in a loving fashion that made Cookie's heart ache, and it hurt even more when she reached up to kiss his cheek. With her back towards the Lyon table, Cookie couldn't see her face, but watching her walk back to the parking lot, something nagged at Cookie. That walk, her posture...it all seemed so familiar.

Cookie locked eyes with Lucious, who was grinning in a way that reminded Cookie of the man she'd grown to dislike, and even hate. "Don't start Lucious," Cookie muttered under her breath. Malcolm was the last man she ever wanted to see again. She'd moved on. Apparently, Malcolm had, too. _Please, Lucious. Please, please,_ _ **please**_ _don't -_

"Malcolm!" Lucious called, smiling broadly and gesturing to their table.

"Lucious, _no!_ " Cookie hissed under her breath.

"Hey," Lucious said innocently. "I'm just saying hi to a former employee of mine. Just catching up with the man, that's all. Don't you want to know what he's up to?" he added with smile, knowing that she did. He'd caught the look on his wife's face when she saw Malcolm.

Since Lucious didn't have the good sense to prevent this confrontation, Cookie prayed that Malcolm would. But Malcolm was striding towards the table as casually as ever, as if Cookie had never met anything to him. Maybe she hadn't. That thought made Cookie sit up a little straighter. She'd been the one to let Malcolm go, not the other way around.

"S'up, Malcolm?" Lucious stood to shake Malcolm's hand. King of the jungle, he was, with his queen by his side. The woman Malcolm had failed to get was Lucious's wife once again. Whatever little chick he came in with earlier didn't hold a candle to Cookie. She wasn't even with him anymore. Lucious had every reason to gloat.

Of all the times for Anika to leave her damned purse in the truck..."Lucious," Malcolm greeted neutrally. He didn't say _good to see you,_ since they both knew that was a lie. He reached over to Hakeem instead. "Hakeem. Damn good album you just released. Got it in my ride right now. Hey, Jamal." More handshakes and pounds. "I heard you're going on tour." Malcolm might have despised their father, but the Lyon brothers made great music. He had no problem supporting the Jamal and Hakeem with his dollars.

"Two weeks from now," Jamal confirmed. "Starting in Japan. Ever been there?"

"Yep. Served four months in Okinawa. Rhonda, Andre. Congratulations." Malcolm shook Andre's hand, then smiled for the first time since he'd come to their table. He reached out and stroked the cheek of the now-sleeping baby. "She's beautiful. What's her name?"

"Andrea Eileen," Rhonda said proudly. "After Andre, of course, and my mother's first name."

"We wanted to name her to Loretha Eileen," Andre informed Malcolm. "But Mom said she'd kill us if she did."

 _Loretha_. Malcolm turned to Lucious's wife. The Lyoness. The queen. "Hello, Cookie," he finally greeted her.

Even though Malcolm had said Cookie's name with respect, it still came out in a quiet, intimate fashion that made Lucious's brows knit together. Meanwhile, Cookie was fuming. She didn't appreciate being acknowledged last, even though she understood why. "Hey, Malcolm," she said, trying to sound unaffected by his presence. "What are you doing back in New York?"

"New job. Plus my lady lives here. I moved back here to be with her."

So it was official. The woman with the familiar presence wasn't a sister or a cousin. She was the woman Malcolm was seeing now. "How long you been back?" Cookie asked. Lucious scowled in Cookie's direction. Why was she keeping a running conversation with this motherfucker?

"Only a couple of weeks. I'm meeting everybody from my job for the first time today, but I'm a little early."

Without thinking, Cookie teased, "Thought there was no such thing as early." How many times had Malcolm said it? "You're either one time..."

"...or you're late," they finished together, along with Hakeem, Jamal and Andre. They all laughed together.

Lucious wasn't appreciating this little moment Malcolm was having with his family, no matter how polite and friendly it was. "So you're moving for a job and a female again, huh? Feels like déjà vu to me."

"Déjà vu for us both, Lucious." Malcolm wasn't about to rise to the bait. "Congratulations on your marriage...remarriage...whatever." There wasn't a trace of sincerity or warmth in Malcolm's voice.

"Thanks, man." Lucious put his arm around Cookie, who focused her eyes on her 10-carat wedding ring, custom made from Tiffany's. "That's real nice coming from you, Malcolm. Y'know, since you had your hand in the cookie jar and all."

"That's our cue," Andre told Rhonda under his breath, and they quickly and quietly packed up to get out of the restaurant as fast as they could. Lucious and Malcolm were walking through landmines now, and Andre didn't want to be anywhere near his father when they went off. Lucious hadn't forgotten the night that Malcolm took Cookie out of his arms and staked his claim right in front of him and his sons. _C'mon, baby. I got you._ Lucious had been too shell-shocked to notice then. Now, in front of his entire family, Lucious wanted Malcolm to acknowledge defeat.

Cookie knew Malcolm well enough to know he'd never bow down to Lucious, and she knew Lucious well enough to know he wouldn't stop until Malcolm did. "Where are you working now, Malcolm?" she asked pleasantly, trying to diffuse the situation. "You know the girls back at Empire miss you walkin' around securing the place."

"Columbia." Malcolm's response was so curt that it froze Cookie's tongue. The last thing Malcolm wanted to think about was his time at Empire, trying to mask his feelings about Cookie until he couldn't anymore. He didn't want to think about how soft her skin was, or how her stomach muscles twitched when he kissed them. He didn't want think about what a fool he'd made of himself just a few days later, asking him to come away with her. _Come with me. I wanna take care of you._ Malcolm's eyes focused on the ice skating rink on Cookie's ring finger. No wonder she'd gone back her this golden-eyed demon. Malcolm couldn't afford Cookie in a million years.

"Columbia? You mean CUMC?" Hakeem asked, referring to Columbia University Medical Center.

"No, Columbia University."

"So you're like a security guard?" Lucious asked snidely.

"Lucious," Cookie said warily. "That's not necessary."

"It's okay, Cookie." Malcolm was still talking in that calm, quiet voice that carried a bit of condescension behind it. "Since you asked, Lucious, I'm one of the new cadre for the naval ROTC program."

"What, so you're like a professor or something?" Jamal asked, sounding impressed. Hakeem had a look of respect on his face, too. Lucious, looked dubious, as if he just knew Malcolm was lying. And Cookie wasn't looking at him at all.

Malcolm laughed at the idea of being so high up on the faculty chain. "Nah. I'm an instructor," he explained, letting his guard down just a little. "Teaching a bunch of freshmen which way to point the gun and how many stars are on the flag. They call it military science, but it's really just Navy 101."

Navy 101 or not, there was no taking away from the fact that Malcolm was on the Columbia University staff in a teaching position. It figured this blue-black motherfucker could walk away from his job at Empire and still come out shining. If Lucious lost Empire – and he nearly had – what would he be? Take everything away from Malcolm and he could still rebuild himself, no matter what. Take everything away from Lucious and...no. That wasn't true. As long as he had Cookie, Lucious knew that everything would be okay.

"Hakeem!" Andre was rushing back into the restaurant. His eyes were wide and his face anxious. "Hakeem, lemme holla at you for a second."

"What, something happen?" Hakeem asked. His brother had come in so suddenly that Hakeem felt his heart start to pound.

"No. Um..." Andre rushed to think. "There are a bunch of teenagers up front, and I bet they're going to make a lot of noise and stuff when they see you and Jamal. Let's go out back."

"Fans, huh?" Hakeem smiled. He could use a little excitement. The night had been pretty quiet, and he had the urge to flex in front of Malcolm. "Well, I can't let down my public, right?"

"Hakeem," Andre said nervously, glancing towards the door. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Is everything okay?" Malcolm asked. Though Rhonda and Andre's faces weren't as familiar as everyone else's, they'd made the news quite prominently when the first Lyon grandchild had been born. A crowd full of Lyon fans could cause a small riot, especially with Lucious, Jamal and Hakeem all there. "Rhonda, Andrea...they made it to the car okay, right?"

Andre looked back to the door, then scowled. _Damn it!_ He'd told Rhonda to take her ass to the car and strap Andrea in, but she was coming across the room with a mischievous grin on her face and a woman walking beside her. "Rhonda's coming over with your girl," Andre informed Malcolm, throwing him a look of pure suffering.

Hakeem was the first to recognize her. The sway of those hips and the proud tilt of her chin was the same as it had been before she'd gone off the deep end. "The fuck?" he half-whispered. Was Anika's crazy ass stalking him again? Showing up at the same restaurant they were celebrating his birthday, strolling through the door with his sister-in-law, dating his mother's ex-boyfriend... _wait_... "That's _you_ , man?" Hakeem asked Malcolm incredulously. Of all the women in the world, Anika was who he wound up with?

"Yuuuuup." That's when Malcolm _really_ smiled. He wasn't looking at Hakeem, though. He was looking at a shocked Lucious. And it wasn't so much a smile as it was a smirk. "That's me."

* * *

As it turned out, LaGuardia High School did an extremely thorough background check on any potential student teacher. Since the Empire Anika had worked for no longer existed, her work history had to be verified by the current company. That, Lucious had no problem with. No matter what had gone on between them, Empire had no right to deny Anika had worked there.

It was the additional request Cookie made while they were getting ready for bed that caused Lucious to dig his heels in. "No," he shouted over the sound of running water in the bathroom sink.

"We can't even talk about this, Lucious?" Cookie called from the bedroom. She was reading through the paperwork for Anika's potential placement as a Teaching Fellow, matriculating at City College. _Candidate – Master of Education_ was written in the top right-hand corner. This, even though Anika already had a master's degree in business administration. Cookie couldn't help but be impressed.

"There's nothing to talk about." Lucious came out of the shower. "Why in the hell would I write a letter of recommendation for that bitch? And how does she even have the nerve to ask for one?"

"She didn't. It's my idea." Most of the objectives on the checklist that was following Anika's package around had been checked off, but one section was incomplete: her letters of recommendation. Two recommendations had already been submitted in. One was from a Master Chief Carolyn Sharp, United States Navy. The other was from a Mr. Dan McCarthy, the head of the music department at the Cayman International School. The last slot was left blank.

Lucious grabbed at some of the papers that were scattered all over the bed. Anika, a _teacher_? Was this how far her star had fallen? From the head of Empire's A &R division to teaching some musical brats in Manhattan? "We owe her, Lucious," Cookie told her husband as he looked the paperwork over.

" _We_ owe _her_?" Lucious sneered. He climbed into bed and shook the bed covers viciously, causing Anika's files to scatter to the floor. It took everything in him not to wipe his feet on the paperwork. "How do we owe her?"

"Because we ruined her career." For six years, Anika had worked for Empire, helping to build the brand, mold the artists and become the success it was today. And how was she repaid? By losing her job, her man, her home, and arguably her sanity. "She worked so hard for you, Lucious. And we just took it away from her like it was nothing."

"Nobody told her to go off to Creedmoor and set up a breach with my worst enemy. How can you forgive her for that?" Even though Lucious had gotten over Anika long before she left him, he could still hear Beretti's words in his head. _Your tragedy talks in her sleep. She mumbles your name._ "She fucked that scumbag and then she fucked our son!"

"I remember, Lucious," Cookie said grimly. "I was there."

"Then I'm sure you remember when she killed our grandbaby, right?" After Hakeem recovered from the shock of being a father, he'd resolved to man up and take care of his responsibilities. But Anika wouldn't answer his text messages, ignored his emails and refused to answer the door when he came to talk with her. A couple of weeks later, Anika blew Hakeem off with a single text: _I TOOK CARE OF IT._ Lucious rolled over to his side, turning his back to Cookie. "I ain't givin' that bitch shit."

"Forgiveness, Lucious. That's the word for today. For-give-ness." Cookie kissed Lucious on his Lyon tattoo with every syllable, making him smile in spite everything. "It's time for you to forgive Anika like I've forgiven you. Besides, Lucious," Cookie added as he rolled back over to face her, "you know you should've broken it off with Anika the minute I walked through that door."

"I know, I know," Lucious conceded, curling up in his wife's arms as she stroked his hair. As usual, it was Cookie's voice and Cookie's touch who reduced the roaring Lyon into a cuddly kitten. "But you _hated_ me, Cook." The thought of it made Lucious wrap his arms around Cookie, nuzzling his face against her breasts as his heart began to pound. _17 years_. He didn't even remember the first few because he was so numb. Lucious traced Cookie's nipples under the purple, silk nightgown she was wearing. "I thought I could never have you again.

Cookie laughed and kissed Lucious on the temple. "You liar. Admit it, baby. You knew that eventually, you were going to get me back."

"Okay, I admit it." Lucious tilted his face up to meet his wife's mouth, then rolled her over as she clung to him, not letting her lips leave his as he stretched his body out from above. Cookie shed her nightgown, then spread her legs apart to let Lucious inside of her. God, how much pain would their family had been spared had the two of them just swallowed their pride from the very beginning, rather than nearly destroy everything over the course of two years while they delayed the inevitable?

 _My salvation_ , Lucious called her on the day they remarried, and nothing could've been more true. Without Cookie, Lucious had proven himself to be a monster. He'd gained everything, just to nearly lose it all again. "Please, Cookie," he'd begged her the night all the paperwork and official business dissolved Lyon Dynasty back into Empire. "You've made your point, baby. Don't leave me again, Cookie." Lucious had given his heart to Cookie Lyon when he was 16 years old, and his heart couldn't beat without Cookie by his side. Without her, he could never be healthy or happy or whole.

Likewise, Cookie was tired of pretending she didn't love and need Lucious in her life. Malcolm had been a distraction, but Laz had proven to be one of the biggest mistakes of her life. In the end, Cookie had looked to Lucious to handle it. Even though they hadn't been together in nearly 20 years, Cookie still respected his position as the head of their family. Without a word, Cookie knew what Lucious was going to do to that snake.

It was what came after that that cemented Cookie's love for the man she'd been with since she was 14. Cookie, Lucious and Andre had all come together to watch Hakeem and Jamal perform at a fundraiser. Lucious and Andre had gone to the restroom when she heard some concertgoers gossiping about Hakeem's kidnapping. Little bits of the story floated around the blogs from time to time, but the overall consensus was that Hakeem got his ass kicked because he was a rich little punk. But this guy – who knew a guy who knew a guy who was cousins with Big Heavy's baby mama – had heard something else.

" _Man, you lyin'!_ " someone said behind her. _"Cookie Lyon is a G. She's from the streets, fool! She wouldn't do no stupid shit like that."_

" _I'm tellin' you, it's true! They was takin' all her money, and this dude - Chad or Chaz or something – he was fuckin' Cookie while his crew was ripping her off. And this was after Hakeem got his ass kicked!"_ The cruel, mocking laughter that came after it brought tears to Cookie's eyes. Only her lashes kept them from falling down her cheeks. _"Man, I'd never be able to look my mama in the face again after no ho shit like that-"_

A crack of bone on metal made Cookie jump up, along with a number of other people. _"Motherfucker! I'll_ _ **kill**_ _you!"_

Even though the loud-mouthed asshole had come to the concert with a crew, not one person tried to help him as Lucious beat him so badly that his body smeared blood on the arena floor when Lucious's security finally dragged him away by his ankles. "Y'all got a problem?! Huh?" he demanded from the shocked concertgoers behind him, his hands still red with blood. "Do somethin'!"

Watching those poor kids stumble and scramble away was the same as it had ever been, back when they were married and living Philly and the most dangerous words someone could ever hear were _"did you know that's my wife?"_ When Cookie quietly led Lucious backstage, undid his belt buckle and went down to her knees, that was like back in the day, too, back when a teenage Lucious sometimes needed a wet, sloppy boost of confidence from his wife before he went on stage.

Had Lucious and Cookie been true to themselves from the beginning, they would've acknowledged their love from the day Cookie came back, broken the news to Anika respectfully, and either given her a fat severance package or offered her a place anywhere in Empire. But it wasn't enough for Cookie to beat Anika. She had to crush a woman who, in the beginning, hadn't done anything to Cookie. "You know," Lucious mused out loud after they were done making love, "even with everything I've done to try to make things right, I always felt like there's something I'm missing. This thing with Anika...you think that's what it is?"

Cookie's eyes were heavy from back-to-back orgasms. "Like I said, Lucious, we owe her." Cookie stroked the damp curls on the back of her husband's neck. "It might not do anything, but at least we tried."

Lucious turned his head and kissed Cookie between her bare breasts. "Write it," he murmured, his lips brushing against one of her nipples. "I'll sign it."

The next morning, Cookie woke up to find all of the paperwork Lucious had scattered on the floor neatly stacked and by her nightstand, save for one sheet of paper. " _It is without reservation that we recommend Ms. Anika Calhoun for the position of student teacher at LaGuardia High School_ ," Lucious read loudly, propped up on a stack of pillows as Cookie came into the bedroom, fiddling with an earring. _"_ So you already know I would say yes, huh?"

"No, but I had faith that you would do the right thing." Since Cookie could mimic Lucious's signature perfectly, it didn't really matter if he did. But Cookie had intended to at least give it a day so Lucious would think she'd waited to talk to him before she wrote it.

"Hand me my glasses, baby." It wasn't like anything Cookie had written wasn't true. Anika _was_ brilliant. She _did_ have an ear for music. She _had_ created the programs that allowed Empire to offer music scholarships, summer internships and contribute hefty donations to music programs all over the country. She _had_ worked with the interns every summer. Signing off on Cookie's letter was simply acknowledging everything Anika's had contributed to the company. "She's not going to like this, you know," Lucious predicted as he reached for a pen. "Not coming from us."

"We'll have make sure she never finds out, then. I'll have to go up to the school and talk to whoever's in charge. Get 'em to understand that Anika can't find out about this."

"I wonder how much that's going to cost." Lucious knew better than anybody that silence was expensive. Still, Cookie was right. This was the least Lucious could do. "You know something, Cook?" he said as he signed his name to the letter in the blank space Cookie had left for him. "I feel better already."

Smiling, Cookie placed the letter aside and tilted Lucious's head to where his eyes met hers. "I'm glad," she answered, her hands already loosening his tie. "Now I'm about to make you feel even better."

* * *

"Everybody," Malcolm said placidly. He wrapped his arm around Anika's waist. "I'm sure you remember Anika."

"Hello, everyone," Anika greeted, flashing her sweetest debutante smile. She'd waited her whole life for this moment. The abandonment, the barbs, even the beating was worth watching the steam coming from Cookie's ears. _She's jealous,_ Anika finally realized. _Cookie's jealous of me._ Not because Anika was younger or had the better body or was more educated or even because she was Malcolm's wife. Cookie was jealous because she had gone through great lengths to reduce Anika to nothing. Yet Anika had built herself back up again, even finding a wonderful man to love her.

Just looking at Anika, Cookie knew what Anika was thinking. _Look at you, Cookie. Crawling back to Lucious again when you could have been a sailor's girl._ Goddamn it, hadn't Cookie and Lucious done right by Anika in the end? Hadn't they gone out of their way to make good? Wrote the letter, talked to the principal and the board, bought their silence with a "donation" that could've founded a music school in any ghetto? It was the Lyon family who bankrolled Anika's bullshit fellowship at LaGuardia while Anika finished some bullshit master's degree at some bullshit state college.

Now Anika was strolling her bougie ass to their table when she should've been crawling on her hands and knees - her default position - to the family who had made her in the first place. Anika might have found a sucker who was clueless enough to claim her ass, but Cookie still remembered when Anika was busting it open for anyone – male _or_ female - who would give her a job. And who could forget Anika's failed last-ditch effort for Lucious to marry her? Let that bitch stand there with her simp-ass sailor boyfriend that Cookie kicked his ass to the curb ages ago. Cookie was _proud_ to be Lucious's wife.

Cookie felt Lucious shaking with rage. She slipped her hand into Lucious's and winked when he looked over at her. Once again, only a Lyoness could calm a Lyon. This fake-ass Dorothy Dandridge needed to be taken down a few pegs. "Look, honey," Cookie cooed, twisting her wedding ring so Anika could get a full view of the symbol that represented what Anika had failed to become: Mrs. Lucious Lyon. "Our leftovers have found love together."

TBC


	3. The First Wives' Club

_Leftovers!_ Malcolm didn't think he deserved a medal for the way he treated Cookie during their short time together, but he didn't expect such vitriol, either. "Cookie," Malcolm said evenly. "I've never said anything mean or nasty about you. I'd appreciate it if you'd do the same."

"You're right, Malcolm. I'm sorry." Cookie really was, too. Poor Malcolm was the only person in this love rectangle who hadn't done anything wrong, although Lucious might think otherwise. "I just don't understand how you went from wanting me to move with you to D.C. to hooking up with _this_ sorry bitch." This was news to Anika. She knew they'd briefly dated, but she had no idea Malcolm had fallen so hard for Cookie, and not so long ago.

"Yeaaaah, it wasn't even two years ago that you were strung out on Cookie's nookie." One would think Lucious would've been angry at remembering that Malcolm had slept with his wife, but could Cookie help it if her pussy was platinum grade? "My baby's lovin' cures ALS, and it turns war heroes into punks. Ain't that right, Malcolm?"

Malcolm shrugged. "I saved your wife's life, Lucious. It was the least she could do."

"Awww, shit." Hakeem grabbed a chair as Rhonda sat Andrea and her baby carrier on the ground. Jamal stood frozen, watching the dual furor forming in both of his parents clashing with the calmness of Malcolm and Anika. It was a highly volatile mix. Andre sat back down and put his head in his hands. _We're all going to jail,_ he thought glumly.

"Cookie," Anika added with the tone of voice only a debutante could have. "I remember correctly, you were sleeping with Lucious when he was my fiancée, and I left him. _You_ were the side chick, not me."

"Bitch," Cookie spat, visibly trembling with rage, "you didn't leave Lucious until I exposed your ass for the backstabbing tramp that you are. Before you ran off and fucked Billy Beretti. Remember that, Malcolm?" Malcolm's jaw twitched, which neither Cookie nor Lucious missed. "Back when you were one of the ones who helped protect Empire during that breach that _your_ woman caused?"

"Was that before or after Lucious sent Camilla away and lied to Hakeem about the money she took from you?" Malcolm fired back, just as smoothly.

"Don't put my name up in your beef, bruh." Like Cookie, Hakeem couldn't believe his ex-future stepmother turned ex-future baby mama and ex-stalker was Malcolm's wife. But Anika's crazy ass was Malcolm's problem now. "You'll look up and get your feelings hurt," he added, savoring the nervous look on Anika's face.

Cookie couldn't throw Hakeem up in Anika's face without hurting her youngest son. So, like Anika's teaching certification, Cookie chose an alternate route. "Let's get something straight, Boo Boo Kitty. You were _never_ Lucious's chick. Not the main chick, the side chick, the back chick, nothing. You were just keeping my spot warm until I got back." Cookie sat back smugly as Anika lowered her eyes. "My sacrifice made you and everything that you are. Don't forget that."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, we know. It was your fo' hunnit thousand that built Empire," Anika mocked Cookie's _woe-was-me_ speech. "I'm sure you killed about fo' hunnit thousand with all the drugs you flooded into your community, too."

Cookie stood up so fast that her chair overturned. "Yeah, and it was my fo' hunnit thousand that got your ass teaching at LaGuardia High School," she hissed. "So check your tone, little girl."

"Cookie," Lucious warned. They'd agreed to keep that a secret, but Cookie was on a tear now, especially with the shock written all over Anika and Malcolm's faces. "That's right, bitch. We got your little packet when you needed your work history verified. I'm sure the letter of recommendation me and Lucious signed is still in your files."

Anika turned to Lucious, disbelieving. "Don't look at me," he shrugged, digging the knife in deeper. "I didn't write it. I just signed it."

"Tryin' to make amends for your bougie, _ungrateful_ ass," Cookie continued as the truth began to sink in. "Drug money started Empire, bitch! Your entire work history after college is because of _us._ And the only reason why your young, dumb ass is at LaGuardia is because of the donation we paid to make them choose you. _"_

Four hundred thousand dollars. All this time, Anika thought that it was her education and her work experience that sent her to the performing arts school. And yet, Anika remembered being confused when she got the call that she'd been accepted in the school's lone teaching spot when her last letter of recommendation had yet to be written. "La-GWAR-dee-ah," Anika replied softly. It was the only thing Anika could say in the face of such overwhelming shame.

"Huh?"

"La-GWAR-dee-ah, Cookie. Not La-GARD-dee-ah. If you're going to brag about how you bought my job, at least pronounce the name of the school right."

"Whatever the fuck you call it, it was me and Lucious who got you there," Cookie growled. "So you need to show a little more respect when you're in front of your superiors." Cookie gestured to her husband and sons.

"Superior _what_ , Cookie?" Malcolm cut in, baffled by Cookie's behavior, her mood, her logic – hell, by Cookie, period. What happened to the warm-hearted, humble woman he once loved up in the Berkshires? Yes, Cookie dealt drugs to keep her family going, but he'd never heard her brag about it before. Was this what money did to Cookie? Or was this what Lucious did to Cookie? "You were a drug dealer, and you got caught."

"Superior _everything_ , Malcolm." Cookie gave Malcolm a smile that belied every warm, wet and intimate moment they'd spent together before Cookie dropped his pathetic ass. "I bet you waited a whole lot longer than one weekend to ask Anika to move anywhere with you, didn't you?"

"You're right, I did," Malcolm admitted. "But that's what happens when you raise your standards."

Chairs overturned and silverware clattered to the floor as Andre, Jamal and Hakeem rushed to keep Malcolm and Lucious apart. "Say somethin' to my wife again, motherfucker! Say somethin' to my wife again!"

"Cookie, what the hell is your problem?" Malcolm half-yelled, ignoring Lucious's warning. Most men bowed down to Lucious when they learned Cookie was his wife. But Malcolm wasn't most men. "Look, you were right, okay? You never needed me to take care of you. I was wrong to even ask you to come with me. But everything worked out, right? You're back with Lucious, I'm with Anika. If you can't be happy for us, keep your smart-ass comments to yourself!"

Had it been any other woman in the world, Cookie would have been happy for Malcolm. Malcolm was a wonderful man who had always treated Cookie well. But Anika? How could Malcolm walk by her so proudly? Lucious took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down, but Andre still stayed close. "If this was back in the day, I'd put a bullet in your dome for talking to my wife like that," he said, his voice low and cold and promising that he could still go back to the old Lucious if need be. "Don't make me go back to the old me, motherfucker."

"What, you need a piece or something?" Malcolm mocked. "I got a Glock in my truck. We can go get it right now, you bastard!"

" _No!"_ Anika rushed past Hakeem and Jamal and began to push Malcolm back to the best of her ability. If Malcolm said he was going to give Lucious his gun, that was exactly what Malcolm would do. And then what? "Stop! _Stop!_ Cookie, say something!" But Cookie just gave her cat-with-the-canary smile and shrugged. Lucious was defending his wife's honor, like a man was supposed to do. If Malcolm got his dumb ass popped, he would just get his dumb ass popped.

" _Malcolm DeVeaux!"_

The voice had an instant reaction on not just Malcolm, but the Lyons, Anika, and everybody at Chef's Table. Striding towards the table was a diminutive older woman who cut a swath 10 feet wide as she stridently marched towards her target. "Good evening, Master Chief," Malcolm mumbled, dropping all bravado and suggestions of his potential death.

"Don't you 'Master Chief' me, goddamn it! What's the hell is wrong with you?" The woman shoved Malcolm on the shoulder. "You just got here and you're _already_ getting into fights? Some things never change, do they? Don't make me call your grandfather!"

"I'm sorry…who are you?" Jamal asked. There wasn't anyone at the table who wasn't wondering why this wispy white woman was having such an effect on Malcolm, Anika included.

The elderly woman drew herself up to her full height, which barely cleared five feet. "I'm Master Chief Mary Sharp," she said firmly.

Now Anika knew what the deal was. "You're Malcolm's grandmother!" Anika remembered the name from her student teaching recommendations. Malcolm told her that his high school mentor had married his grandfather shortly after Malcolm became a Navy SEAL.

"Call me Mary, please." Mary stepped forward and grasped Anika's hands. "And you must be Malcolm's wife, Anika."

" _Wife?"_ For all of Cookie's ride-or-die love for Lucious, she looked absolutely shocked. "You _wifed_ this bitch?" she demanded to know, sounding almost betrayed at such a stunt.

Before another potential murder could break out, Mary whirled around. "Who are _you_ supposed to be?" she asked coldly.

Lucious wasn't about to disrespect an old woman, but he wasn't so sure about Cookie. "This is my wife, Cookie, ma'am," he said hurriedly, rising to his feet. "And I'm Lucious Lyon. CEO and founder of Empire Enterprises."

"You say that as if I should be impressed," Mary took a few steps back to examine the woman who had called her new granddaughter a bitch. "Ah, yes. Cookie Lyon. They say television adds 10 pounds. Looks like in your case, it takes them away." Rhonda's jaw dropped as Mary turned back to Malcolm and Anika. "Anyway. Malcolm, I came to tell you all that we're going to have to reschedule this dinner. Commander Wilshire's daughter has been in a car accident, so the rest of us are going to go over to CUMC to make sure everything is okay and start planning for the upcoming week. That's when you'll meet the new cadets."

"I should come, right?" Malcolm asked, shrugging his coat back on.

"I'd stay away. The commander has enough on his mind without worrying about his new cadre member. And so do I." Mary smacked Malcolm on the arm again, and Anika hid a smile. Watching her husband being beaten up by an elderly midget was rather amusing. "So you behave, you hear me? No fighting, no loud arguments in public, and no shootings or volunteering to get shot." Mary shook a look in Lucious's direction that made him feel like a little boy who'd lost his lunch money.

Now Malcolm smiled. Hearing Mary say it all out loud made him feel like a first class asshole, especially in front of his wife. "Yes, Master Chief," he promised.

"Why do you call your grandmother 'Master Chief'?" Hakeem wondered out loud as Mary made her way to the back room to inform the rest of the early-arrived cadre about the change of plans.

Malcolm cut Hakeem a look that told him that he didn't want to talk about it. "Long story."

Anika slid her hand into the small of Malcolm's back. Malcolm looked over at his wife and smiled, appreciating the small gesture. The last time he told her a "long story," they were back in the hospital talking about a miserable young man who did all he could to be thrown out of his high school military academy. It wasn't a time that Malcolm spoke of very often.

"So. You're married." While Mary had been berating Malcolm, Rhonda had taken out her cell phone to check the marriage certificates for the state of New York. Sure enough, Malcolm and Anika's island marriage had been confirmed and made official in the state of New York five weeks ago. She slid her phone to Cookie, then watched as Cookie tried to mask the hurt and shock from her face. "When's the baby due?" Cookie asked as she discreetly handed the phone back to Rhonda.

Anika didn't miss a beat. "In May, if everything goes well."

"May?" Malcolm asked, hoping that he'd just heard what he thought he heard. "You're pregnant?"

Anika smiled shyly. "I wanted to make sure before I told you. I have another doctor's appointment next week, but…yeah." Even though they were married, Anika couldn't stop herself from blushing. "I guess it happened on our wedding night."

For a moment, Malcolm had no response. Not even two months ago, Malcolm had a pretty girlfriend and was hanging out in the Cayman Islands without a care in the world. Now he had a wife and a baby on the way. Without thinking, Malcolm let out a war whoop so loud and sharp everybody stared and the back banquet room began to empty. Most of the Columbia University cadre had never even met Malcolm before, but everyone one of them responded to the navy call: " ** _Hoo_** _-yah!"_

"What now, Malcolm?" Mary asked, irritated as she confronted her husband's hot-headed grandson for a second time. "Did you sign up to be an archery target?"

"Malcolm," Anika warned, but Malcolm didn't care. He'd deal with Anika's wrath later. "We're having a baby!" he announced proudly to the small crowd that had just gathered.

" _Malcolm!"_ It was too late. For just a few minutes, Lucious and Cookie Lyon didn't exist in Malcolm and Anika's world. The cadre shut the Lyon family out while making a circle around the couple. Just like with the Military Ball months before, Malcolm was introducing Anika to this person and that. "My wife, Anika," he said over and over proudly. _A baby!_ He never knew how much he wanted a child until right at that moment.

Anika felt so happy at being accepted by a group of people who weren't Empire assholes that she could cry. Even Andre, Rhonda and Jamal came over to congratulate the happy couple. "Get all the sleep you can now," Rhonda teased, handing Andrea to Anika to hold. "In about two months, you're going to wish you could sleep on your stomach or your back." Anika looked at the beautiful little girl in her arms. Without even knowing anything about their baby, Anika was filled with love for the child she was carrying.

"Do me a favor," Andre requested, exchanging a hug and some dap with Andre. "Try to have a boy. Then your son can marry our daughter & maybe our families can be cool from now on."

"Like Romeo and Juliet? Didn't they die?" Jamal joked.

When Mary reached for Anika's hand, Anika could no longer hold back her tears. "Congratulations, my love," Mary whispered, looking down at the baby girl in Anika's arms with great longing. A woman didn't make Master Chief with children back when she enlisted 38 years ago. Hell, they rarely pulled it off now.

Watching the newlyweds together, Lucious couldn't help but smile. He was still working to be a better man, just like Cookie constantly pushed him to do. When the crowd finally began to disperse, Lucious stood and stepped forward to shake Malcolm's hand. "Congratulations, Malcolm. Really," he added when Malcolm didn't move. "Welcome to the club, man. Fatherhood…it's a trip."

Malcolm gritted his teeth, but he shook Lucious's hand after seeing the serene look on Anika's face, cooing at Rhonda's daughter. _That's about to be my wife,_ he thought, still disbelieving. If Lucious was willing to let bygones be bygones and Rhonda could pry her daughter out of Anika's hands, so be it. "Thanks, Lucious." It did make Malcolm feel a _little_ better.

"I still remember the day Cookie told me she was pregnant," Lucious said, smiling tenderly at his scowling wife. Cookie wasn't nearly as sentimental as Lucious was. "Happiest day of my life. We wanted a baby so bad."

"At 15?" Anika knew Cookie got pregnant when Lucious was just 15, and they married shortly before Andre was born, but she had no idea that it was planned. "Why?"

"Because it was the only way the courts would marry us." Cookie said defensively. "Not everybody goes to overseas boarding schools, Boo Boo Kitty."

It took everything in Cookie's soul not to curse Anika out. She didn't care what the rest of these navy people thought about her, but the look of confusion and disdain on Anika's face at the thought of being pregnant and in love at just 14 was something that Cookie could barely stand. Doctor's daughter. Second-generation debutante. And now the wife of a Navy SEAL. Malcolm's wife. Malcolm, who had made her feel so beautiful and so perfect so long ago, as if she could have been more than a thug's wife. Malcolm, who had wanted to take care of Cookie, to take her away from Lucious. To rescue her. _No wonder he loves Anika so damned much_ , Cookie thought bitterly. Malcolm liked his women weak and clingy and needing to be saved.

But maybe there was something to be said for being taken care of. Cookie stared at Anika through narrowed eyes. Anika would have a glorious first pregnancy, unlike Cookie's. She would spend every day gliding around work on feet that didn't ache and swell from carrying so much weight on a still-growing body. Her childbirth would be smooth and her body would return to normal almost immediately. She would never pray every night that her husband wasn't shot to death over some drug deal gone sour. Anika would never be locked in a cage with her breasts still leaking milk. She would never lie bleeding while others screamed for help that came way too late. Anika would never be robbed not only of her baby, but the chance to ever have another. Just as Cookie was born to be the wife of a dope-dealing thug, Anika was born to be a war hero's wife.

In Anika's place – as the wife of a man who would spend his next few years correcting cadets on their pushups – Cookie would have been miserable. So why was Cookie so irritated at Anika's _Queen for a Day_ act when she was surrounded with her own family, which included a beautiful new granddaughter? _Malcolm was right_ , Cookie said to herself over and over, closing her eyes and trying to check her anger. It had all worked itself out. But sometimes – and she would never say this out loud, to anyone – sometimes, Cookie was sick of being Mrs. Lucious Lyon.

"Cookie." Lucious shot Cookie his _best git-cho-ass-over-here_ look, but Cookie refused to budge. Anika looked so beautiful with a baby in her arms, even if it wasn't Anika's baby. And Malcolm was beaming as proudly as if Andrea was his child, not Andre's. They made a beautiful couple, and no doubt they would make a hundred beautiful babies in every color of the rainbow. From a fake-ass Halle Berry to a fake-ass Buckwheat. "Congratulations, Anika," Cookie said, barely getting the words out as she reached for her third glass of wine.

"Thank you, Cookie." Anika's words were so dry and sarcastic that anyone would be able to detect the tension. "Any motherly advice on this joyous occasion?"

Three sons and only 12 years of having raised them. Cookie looked over to the one son that she hadn't raised, the one who hadn't joined his brothers in the celebratory circle. The one who was staring out into the parking lot as if none of this was affecting him. "Yeah, I got some advice." Cookie strolled over to Anika, smiling sweetly as she removed her grandchild from Anika's arms. "Try not to kill this one."

* * *

 _You're my wife, Anika. So hold your head up high._

The words rolled through Anika's head as Cookie quietly removed her grandchild from Cookie's arms.Anika couldn't hold her head up, not anymore. Not in front of her husband's grandmother and his co-workers, who all just learned from Cookie that Anika had had an abortion. Anika didn't even know Hakeem told his family that she was pregnant. Why, when he had denied it to her face and slammed the door?

Anika longed to cut Cookie down to size. There were so many things Anika could have said that made her abortion look like something that deserved the Presidential Medal of Freedom. About Cookie's 17 years in prison, her ex-drug dealing days, about being dumped by Lucious _again_ and _again_ and _again_. But the cruel smirk on Cookie's face juxtaposed with the baby in her arms dared Anika to even breathe too much air. "Excuse me." Anika still had Malcolm's keys in her purse, and she wanted nothing more than to run and hide in the truck until Malcolm came to take her home.

Mary stepped in front of Anika's body, forming a barrier between herself and the exit door that led into the parking lot. "Don't you move a muscle," she ordered quietly, her back turned to Cookie. "Don't you give the bitch the satisfaction."

But Anika was no sailor, and she wasn't a member of the Columbia's cadre. She wasn't required to take Mary's orders just because she was Malcolm's wife. "Excuse me, please." Unlike Mary, Anika had to push her way through the crowd to run to the parking lot. She was crying even before she even left.

"Anika, wait!" Rhonda called, but Anika was half-running, half-tripping. "Anika! Be careful!" Rhonda turned to her mother-in-law. "That was low, Cookie. Even for you." She left to catch up with Anika, which didn't surprise Cookie. She didn't expect Rhonda to have any family loyalty. What surprised Cookie was that Jamal followed Rhonda, stopping to give his mother a look of pure repulsion before he left.

* * *

Malcolm wasn't sure how to react. He didn't even know what to think. Cookie's bombshell was certainly news to the Columbia University cadre, but it wasn't news to Malcolm. Was Cookie really throwing in Anika's face that she'd had aborted Lucious's child? Was Malcolm supposed to be outraged because Anika wasn't a virgin or something, while Cookie had been pregnant before she was old enough to drive?

Taking deep breaths, Malcolm slowly pulled out a chair, sat down and leaned back as lazily as if he was a guest as Sunday tea. "Spill it, Cookie," he finally said when he was able to speak.

"Spill what?" Lucious asked, wary of Malcolm's lackadaisical attitude.

"Whatever dirt you've got on Anika. Let's hear it. Get it all of your chest. Right here." Malcolm waved his hands. "In front of God and my co-workers and everybody."

"Not us, Malcolm," a large red-headed male spoke up. "Let's go, guys. Give Malcolm and this loudmouth wench some privacy." One by one, in a show of solidarity, the ROTC crew filed out, denying Cookie her audience. Mary stopped long enough to stare hard at Cookie. "You disgust me," she informed Cookie, as calmly if she was telling Cookie the time.

"Go to hell, you white bitch," Cookie muttered back. She'd made a complete ass of herself, she knew. And she knew Lucious was going to give her hell when they got home. But she'd be damned if she backed down now.

Malcolm waited until his fellow cadre were gone before he spoke again. "As I was saying, Cookie. Tell me what you want me to know. All of you. Let's get it all out in the open. All this stuff that's supposed to make me stop loving my wife. Lucious, I know you've gone some kinky bedtime stories."

"Not any that I'm gonna tell you." Lucious had enough kinky bedtime stories to write a book, but Cookie had made such a fool out of herself that Lucious knew he would come off looking even worse.

"Andre? Hakeem?" Malcolm said pointedly. "Anything I need to know?"

"Andre ain't got a damn thing to say," Andre wished for the billionth time that night that they could just leave. Hakeem was staring long and hard at his mother, who was wise enough to keep quiet about his relationship with Anika.

"What about you, Cookie?" Malcolm prompted when Cookie didn't say anything. "What, nothing to say? You've been running your mouth all night." Malcolm paused to let a long moment of silence drag by. "Funny how you're such a bully with my wife," he continued when Cookie refused to speak, "But you won't pop off with me. Will you?"

For once, Cookie didn't know what to say or do. 99% of the time, Lucious would've come to his wife's defense by now, whether she was right or wrong. He'd beaten men bloody for _way_ less than this. But when Cookie looked to Lucious, her husband didn't move a muscle. For the first time in a long time, Lucious was furious with Cookie. Cookie didn't love Malcolm – of that, Lucious had no doubt. So why the hell was Cookie so mad?

"Cookie," Malcolm said again, only this time his voice was lower and not nearly as nice. "This is your last chance to say something. Because once we leave this place, I don't ever want to hear from you again." Cookie had broken something in Anika, and Malcolm knew she would never be the same.

Cookie looked into Malcolm's eyes and saw nothing but hatred there. She never thought he could look at anyone in such a way. "Your tongue game sucks," she said cutely. And Malcolm laughed outright, long and loud, because they both knew she was lying.

Jamal joined the family again, his face somber. "Is everything okay?" Malcolm asked, rising to his feet. "Is my wife okay? Where's Anika?"

"She's in your truck with Rhonda. They sent me away." Jamal smiled. "I think they're just talking, mother to mother."

"Well, they're missing a mother. Cookie." Lucious gave his wife a long, hard look. "Go out to Malcolm's truck and apologize to Anika."

"Lucious, with all due respect," Malcolm spoke up before Cookie could protest. "I don't want Cookie anywhere _near_ my wife."

"No, it's okay." Normally, Cookie would've told Lucious to go to hell. She was a grown woman, not a child to be scolded. But there was something about Malcolm's words that were making Cookie lean in Lucious's direction, albeit grudgingly. It was that underlying idea that Anika was somehow better than Cookie somehow, like Anika was too special and delicate to be around a woman like Cookie.

"Cookie." The threat in Malcolm's voice wasn't so subtle anymore. "I swear to God, if you hurt my wife again, me and you are gonna have words. Count on it."

Cookie looked over at Lucious one last time, disbelieving that Lucious would let another man talk to her like Malcolm just did. "It's getting dark," Lucious said coldly. "Hurry up so we can go home."

* * *

Anika had already strapped herself into the driver's seat by the time Rhonda and Jamal made it to the truck. She had tried to turn the ignition – let Malcolm find his own way home, for all she cared – but her hands shook so badly that she could barely manage to turn the heat on.

"Anika, wait! Anika, hold on!"

Anika sighed deeply and unlocked the power doors from her side. Rhonda climbed into the passenger's side of the truck. "Wait…let's just talk before you take off, okay?"

"Where's Malcolm?" Anika asked, wanting only for Rhonda to close the door and stop letting the heat out.

"I don't know. He was still sitting down when I followed Rhonda out. Look," Jamal said awkwardly. "I'm really sorry about what my mother said. Okay? What she did…that wasn't right."

Anika took her eyes off the steering wheel and looked over at Jamal. She'd underestimated this man. In fact, she'd misjudged most of the Lyons. The only one who had truly mistreated her was Cookie. Even Lucious had gone out of his way to make amends. "Thank you, Jamal."

"Take care, Anika."

For a long time, Rhonda and Anika just sat in silence. It was hard for Rhonda to see Anika so defeated when she had been so happy just minutes ago. Rhonda knew Cookie just well enough to like her, but she'd been the source of Lucious Lyon's judgmental opinions for over a decade. She knew what Anika was going through. "You know, there's this saying about how nobody can make you feel inferior-"

"-without your consent," Anika finished dully. She'd heard it so many times before. "Eleanor Roosevelt."

"Right. For a woman who was so smart, that's the dumbest shit I ever heard." Rhonda got comfortable in the passenger's seat of Malcolm's truck. "It's like sticks and stones, you know? 'Words will never hurt me.'"

"Well, whoever still says that nowadays definitely doesn't know the Lyon family."

Rhonda squeezed Anika's hand, wishing she had a tissue so Anika could wipe the tears falling from her face. "I know you might not believe this, Anika," Rhonda said with a small smile, "but there used to be a time when Lucious didn't like me. He just started treating me right when I got pregnant with Andrea."

Anika had to laugh. Andre and Rhonda had only been married for about three or four years when Anika started dating Lucious. She had sat through many a Rhonda rant. "No telling what she's telling Malcolm right now," Anika said, looking towards the restaurant. Everything Anika had worked on so hard for over a year was gone in minutes. Her self-esteem, her pride – even her job and her man. Would Anika never stop reliving her past? "He doesn't know…"

"What, about the abortion?"

"That it was Hakeem's baby. He thinks it was Lucious's baby."

"You don't owe Malcolm an explanation. It's not his business," Rhonda said firmly. "It was your choice, not his."

Anika laid her head on the steering wheel. "Rhonda, Malcolm's going to leave me over this. I know he will. He'll never understand…"

"Oh, Anika. No, he won't. Did you see him in there?" Just thinking about how giddy and proud Malcolm looked brought a smile to Rhonda's face. "He's crazy about you."

"He was ready to take Cookie to live with him in D.C.!"

"Well, that was just crazy."

They laughed together softly. Anika sat up, feeling a little better. "We just got married, Rhonda. We didn't even plan it. Isn't that crazy? One day, we're talking about beach workouts, and then the next day, we're husband and wife. Doesn't that sound crazy?"

"Like I said, he's crazy about you." Rhonda thought about how proud Malcolm looked when he stood before the Lyon family, his wife by his side. Anika had been misused by so many of them, yet she still stood tall. And LaGuardia…like it or not, Anika had won. So had Cookie. There was enough glory to be spread around. "So, you're a teacher now?" Rhonda asked.

"Yeah. Can you believe it?" Anika still couldn't believe it sometimes. She never thought she'd love anything more than making music. "I teach music at a performing arts school."

"LaGuardia? Isn't that the school on _Fame_?"

Anika laughed. "La-GWAR-dee-uh, dammit!"

As the two of them got comfortable reliving their high school days - Anika in Sweden and Rhonda on Swedish meatballs - there was a knock on Rhonda's side of the truck. Anika froze when she saw Cookie at the window. "It's okay, Anika." Rhonda said quietly, turning her face so Cookie couldn't read her lips. "I'll stay with you." Rhonda rolled down the passenger's side window. Anika fixed her eyes on the steering wheel. "What's up, Cookie?" Rhonda asked. "Are you leaving?"

"No. I want to talk to Anika for a minute."

Something in Cookie's voice irritated Anika to no end. Even though Cookie was standing out outside of Malcolm's truck wanting to talk to Malcolm's wife, there was something in her tone that made it more of an order, not a request. "What is it, Cookie?" Anika asked tiredly, resigned to the fact that she was never going to get any peace with Cookie on this earth.

"Ain't you gonna get out of the car?"

"For what? It's cold." Anika looked over at Cookie and tried to hold her gaze. But it was hard. Cookie's eyes were like looking into the sun. Eventually Anika blinked and had to look away. "Haven't you said enough to me tonight?"

"Goddamn, Boo Boo Kitty, calm down. I just wanna talk to you for a minute."

"About what? What could you possibly have to say to me, Cookie? Because I'm pretty sure _'I'm sorry for embarrassing the shit out of you in front of everybody'_ isn't a part of it!"

"Will you stop acting like a whiny bitch?" First Malcolm, now Anika. Was everybody losing their mind talking to Cookie like this? "Or at least let me in the car," she comprised when Rhonda and Anika just stared at her. "It's freezing out here."

With a smirk, Anika looked Cookie dead in the eye, then rolled up the window. The sight of her own daughter-in-law snickering with Anika shot a rush of anger through Cookie's body. Once again, Cookie was trying to make things right, but Anika had her high-yellow ass so high on her shoulder that the girl could smell her own shit, which certainly didn't stink. And of course Anika could only pull a stunt like this with Rhonda by her side. _"Open the goddamn door!"_ Cookie screamed, and she kicked the front tire on Rhonda's side to underscore her demand. She didn't need anybody to have her back like Anika's weak ass did.

"Cookie! Are you crazy?" Rhonda screamed. But Cookie just slammed the palms of her hands against the window in response, taking pleasure at the way they both jumped. "Look, Anika." Rhonda volunteered hurriedly. "I'll get in the back. Can you unlock the back doors from your side? Please, Anika?" she added in a whisper when Anika didn't move. "Just let her say what she has to say so we can all get the hell out of here."

Anika didn't answer, but Rhonda heard the click of the doors and climbed out of the front passenger's side. "Watch out, Cookie. There's a little patch of ice down there," Rhonda warned, though she wouldn't have cared if Cookie broke her neck or not.

Cookie took Rhonda's place in the front passenger's seat. Anika wouldn't even look at her. She was rummaging under the car seat instead. "Anika…" God, this was so humiliating, being sent out to apologize like a little child. But at least Cookie was being made to apologize in private. "Look, about back there…"

In a flash, Cookie's forehead was touching the barrel of Malcolm's Glock, while the back of her head rested on the ice-cold window. Anika's face was peaceful, but her eyes were completely blank. Once again, Cookie had taken all Anika had worked for and ground it to dust, like it was nothing.

"Anika," Rhonda whispered, too terrified to move or scream for help. "Don't do this. Please, don't-" The familiar _click-click_ filled the air, and Rhonda felt sick enough to vomit. She'd heard it so many times in her white trash upbringing, where there was never enough money for food, but always enough for guns _. Locked, cocked, ready to rock._

"You know, Cookie," Anika told Cookie, her voice so pleasant that it made Cookie's blood run cold. "I used to have this fantasy that I would kill your family in front of you and then kill myself. Just so you would suffer for the rest of your life." Anika gave a Cookie a smile that was bright, cheerful, and absolutely terrifying. "But since I have a baby on the way, I think I'll just take you out instead."

TBC


	4. Welcome Back, Lori Holloway

No one could get Andrea to stop crying. Not Andre, her father. Not Jamal or Hakeem, whose singing/rapping shtick did nothing. Malcolm, bad-ass SEAL that he was, was practically hiding in a corner. The man did insurgents and soldiers and suicide bombers. He did _not_ do babies.

"She might be hungry," Jamal suggested. In that case, only Rhonda could solve that issue.

"Nah. Hand her here." Lucious might not have been shit as a father, but Andrea Lyon thought that her grandfather hung the moon. Now that her bright green eyes were fixed on her first love, Andrea's crying ceased. Lucious snuggled the baby, breathing in her sweet baby smell. "See?" he told a table of admiring men as Lucious held his cooing granddaughter in his arms. "Nothin' to it." Having Andrea was almost like a chance to start over. " _You're…so…beautiful…"_

"One thing about that song," Malcolm remarked, a wry smile on his face. "It fits every occasion."

Was Malcolm trying to throw shade or was he cracking a joke? Malcolm tended to say everything in the same insomnia-inducing monotone. "Can you sing?" Lucious asked cautiously.

"Not a lick." Malcolm smiled. "I hope our baby gets his mother's musical talent. She says I'm tone deaf. I don't even know what that means."

Hakeem, who had been glaring at Malcolm with a quiet intensity all night, rose from the table and stormed away without speaking. He hadn't said a word to Hakeem since learning that Malcolm had married Anika. It was Malcolm's job to study things, and it was obvious that Hakeem once had a crush on his ex-future stepmother, now Malcolm's wife.

"Are you hoping for a boy or a girl?" Lucious had also taken note of his son's sudden departure. Andre and Jamal went to join him.

"We haven't talked about it yet, remember? I just found out." Malcolm still couldn't believe that he was about to be a father. "I don't think I can handle girls. My parents had three girls and I see how hard it was to keep them all on the straight and narrow."

Lucious nodded. "Right up until Cookie went to prison, we were trying for a girl. Cookie wanted a girl more than anything." Lucious paused, then added, "She was pregnant when she went to prison."

"I didn't know that." No wonder Cookie would turn away when Malcolm joked about them having a baby together. _Sigonella. S-i-g-o-n-e-l-l-a._ It popped into Malcolm's head out of nowhere.

Lucious kept his eyes on his gurgling granddaughter. "One thing I really regret is how bad I've treated the women in my life. Cookie, Anika, Rhonda, my mama, Cookie's mama…hell, I didn't even give Cookie's mama a choice in the matter. Just showed up and told her 'this is how it's going to be.'" Lucious kissed Andrea on the cheek, and she squealed with happiness. "I swear, if some man came into Dre's life and did to her what I did to Cookie, I'd kill him."

"What you do mean?"

"I mean getting Cookie pregnant, not even thinking about her future…sometimes I think the only thing ever held Cookie back from her full potential was me. I knew I wouldn't make it without Cookie. I still can't."

Malcolm couldn't come up with an argument for that. "I'm glad Anika found you, Malcolm," Lucious continued. "She deserves a man who'll be dedicated to her. I could never give my all to Anika, not really. I _need_ Cookie, man. I need her to live. But she doesn't need me," Lucious confessed. "That's a hard way to live, man." Like it or not, Lucious knew that Malcolm was his own man. Malcolm might have loved Anika, but he didn't need Anika to be made whole, not like Lucious needed Cookie.

Malcolm shrugged. He didn't give a damn what Lucious needed. "If Cookie didn't need you, she wouldn't have married you again."

"Never thought about it like that." Lucious smiled a little, although the idea of Cookie needing Lucious the way Lucious needed Cookie was a foreign thought. "I just wish I'd been a man about mine & broke it off with Anika when Cookie showed up. She didn't deserve how it ended. She deserved better than that." Lucious signed heavily, looking up at Malcolm for the first time. "She deserves a good man like you."

"What makes you think I'm a good man, Lucious?" Malcolm asked. "You don't even know me."

"That's true." Certainly Lucious didn't take Malcolm for the kind of man who would take Cookie off with him on a long weekend up in the Berkshires. "But I know Anika, and I know she's not the kind of woman to make the same mistake twice." Lucious shook his head, smiling at his memories of what Anika used to be, before Cookie came back in the picture. "I wish you would've known Anika in the beginning, Malcolm. Before I ruined her."

"Anika's not ruined," Malcolm said so sharply that Andrea stopped her cooing. "She's perfect to me."

"That's not what I meant, Malcolm. I meant…" Lucious was trying to choose his words carefully. Malcolm's expression didn't change, but Lucious was no fool. Talk about a man's wife, and things could go left very quickly. "There was a sweetness to Anika that I damaged. A light in her eyes…I killed that. I admit it. Seeing her so happy again with you reminds me of the Anika I knew so long ago."

"Before you drove her crazy," Malcolm pushed.

"Yeah," Lucious answered, though Lucious hadn't been the one to drive Anika crazy – Cookie had. Still, Lucious took the blame anyway. "I hope you have a daughter, Malcolm," Lucious went on. "Men like you need to be raising girls. Raise 'em up right so they know to stay away from boys like me."

Malcolm froze as Lucious carefully handed Malcolm his granddaughter. He had no idea how to handle a baby and would've much rather had been handling a live grenade. Andrea seemed to know that Malcolm had no idea what he was doing, for she whimpered anxiously upon being placed in Malcolm's arms. But once she saw her grandfather, Andrea relaxed. "See?" Lucious said as Andrea's eyes held Malcolm's gaze. "I know you were a good man. Babies always know."

"She's beautiful," Malcolm admired, and Lucious beamed with pride. This tiny, golden Lyon cub was perfect mixture of her mother and her father. What would Malcolm and Anika's child look like? Anika was biracial, born to an Irish father and a Caymanian mother. Malcolm was Guyanese on his father's side and African-American on his mother's side. The possibilities were endless. Malcolm smiled down at Andrea, who began to settle down in Malcolm's arms. This whole fatherhood thing scared him and excited him all at once. He hadn't even known he was going to be a father for 20 minutes, and he was already read to kill for and die for someone he hadn't even met yet. To hell with seven or eight more months. Malcolm wanted to meet his baby right now.

"You believe in God, Malcolm?

The sudden shift in the conversation made Malcolm take pause. "I was raised Catholic," he answered, which wasn't an answer at all. After all he'd seen and experienced throughout his life, Malcolm wasn't so sure that God existed.

"You think God ever gives you the chance to try it again?" Lucious asked, stroking a lock of Andrea's strawberry-blonde curls. "You know, to make up for the wrong you've done before?"

"I have no idea," Malcolm answered. It was a good question, though. "I killed men in the navy, so I certainly hope so."

"I can't imagine you have a whole lot of karma out there." The edge in Lucious's voice was starting to creep back in. "Me? I got a ton of it. Lots of shit to atone for if I even want to think about seeing heaven."

"Is that why you and Cookie wrote that check?" Malcolm was starting to remember why he didn't have a whole lot of sit-down conversations with Lucious, not even when he worked at Empire. "To try to make up for how you treated my wife?"

"Yeah," Lucious admitted. "Man, that was so wrong, what Cookie did. Best believe I'ma get up in that ass tonight." Lucious still couldn't believe his wife's behavior. Cookie had always been a petty little thing, even back in the day, but she'd never been a cruel woman. "We might have gotten Anika the student teaching spot, but we didn't get her the job. Malcolm, I know I don't have the right to ask you for anything, but I hope...no. I _know_ that you're gonna treat Anika right," Lucious predicted. "So I guess I don't have to ask you for anything after all."

"Yeah. I am." Malcolm sure as hell was going to treat Anika better than Lucious did. Not that that was going to take much effort. "Everything worked out, I think," Malcolm added graciously, handing Lucious back his sleeping granddaughter before she woke up. "You're with your queen again, and I found mine." Malcolm nodded towards the parking lot, where Hakeem was gesturing furiously. Andre was holding him by the shoulders, as if he was trying to prevent Hakeem from re-entering the restaurant. "I just hate that it's so hard on your boy."

Lucious often wondered how much Malcolm knew about Anika's expulsion from the music business. "I think Hakeem's starting to see that he had his chance and he blew it," he said craftily. "Life moves on. Anika has, too," he added, as both Lucious and Malcolm looked out towards Malcolm's truck. Lucious noted the brief look of confusion on Malcolm's face and smiled to himself. A petty comment, Lucious knew, but he just couldn't help himself sometimes. "I wonder what our wives are talking about?"

"Rhonda," Anika ordered calmly. "Get out of the car."

"Not until you give me that gun." Rhonda didn't know who she was trying to protect – Anika or Cookie. Or maybe she'd seen too many gun accidents in her life. Drunks shooting off rifles during holidays, angry fights that lead to weapons drawn in a heartbeat. _"It just went off…I didn't mean to…"_

"You can go, Rhonda," Cookie assured Rhonda, cool as a cucumber. "Boo Boo Kitty ain't about to shoot me." Even a gun to her head didn't rattle Cookie.

Rhonda wasn't so sure. She'd seen the blank look in Anika's eyes, as if Anika felt like the only way to get rid of Cookie was to get rid of Cookie. To Anika, there seemed to be no way out. And that fantasy about killing off Cookie's family, then killing herself? Anika said spoken so surely and calmly that it chilled Rhonda's bones.

"You sound awfully certain," Anika noted. "How do you know?"

"If you didn't shoot Hakeem, you sure as hell won't shoot me." The defeated look in Anika's eyes assured Cookie that Anika was all talk. "Now give Rhonda the gun like a good kitty right now, and I _might_ not beat your ass right here in Malcolm's truck."

Malcolm. Her baby. Her students. Slowly, the fog in Anika's brain began to lift. It was as if she was on the outside looking in. Was that Anika's hand holding a loaded gun to somebody's head? Her hand, now beginning to shake, made Cookie's sneer even wider.

There was only one thing Anika could do to save face. She handed the loaded gun to Rhonda with the barrel facing in Rhonda's direction. Even Cookie knew better than that. Anika didn't know jack shit about handling guns. "Here. Out."

"Not happening." Cookie took note at how Anika jumped at the sound of Rhonda unloading the Glock, relaxed, and punched Anika so hard in the mouth that her head bounced off the glass. "Cookie!" Rhonda shrieked.

"You're lucky you're pregnant, bitch," Cookie informed Anika calmly, admiring the fountain of blood that was pouring from Anika's nose, ruining her Burburry coat. "Or else I'd take that piece from my daughter-in-law and blow your head off. That shit might not get you killed on the sidewalks where you walk, but in these streets-"

"Oh, here we go again about these sidewalks and these streets, Cookie." Anika had all she could stand of Cookie's posturing. "You know, Cookie," Anika noted as she reached into Malcolm's glove compartment and grabbed a handkerchief. "Your problem is that you and Lucious have told these lies so many times that you believe them. You might be a thug's wife, but you were never a thug…Lori."

After Cookie's teacher had called her name three times and she didn't respond, Miss Tennison had to explain to Cookie that _she_ was Loretha Holloway, and that _Cookie_ was a nickname. Cookie didn't even know she had another name other than Cookie. Miss Tennison agreed that this bright, beautiful little girl was too adorable to be a Loretha, but she refused to call her Cookie. _"I know! We'll call you Lori!"_ Until the day Cookie dropped out of school, she still had to be nudged by her friends or classmates to answer to any name except Cookie.

Cookie hated that name then then, and she hated it now, especially coming from Anika's swollen mouth. "Little Lori Holloway," Anika continued in a syrupy tone. "Second daughter of Jeanette and Michael Holloway. You grew up in a two-parent household, Lori. And I mean that literally," Anika clarified to Rhonda, not taking her eyes off Cookie. "Lori here grew up in a house. Rhonda didn't grow up in a house, and she's white."

"You think growing up in a house meant that I wasn't poor?"

"Oh, you were poor. Daddy couldn't keep a job…mama smoked up everything he brought home…definitely poor. But you had it a whole lot better than most of the kids in your neighborhood. Even after your dad got killed, you still weren't a street kid." Anika wiped the rest of the blood from her nose and spat into Malcolm's handkerchief. "Not from what I've seen."

"And what have you seen, Boo Boo Kitty?" Cookie scoffed, wondering where the hell Anika was going with all this.

"What, you didn't know? Lucious kept all your receipts, Lori. Report cards, school awards, perfect attendance, honor roll…" Cookie's face was one of confusion, while Rhonda's was one of shock. She knew Cookie dropped out of school before starting 9th grade, but she – like everyone else –assumed Cookie was a poor student. "Rhonda, did you know that your mother-in-law placed top three in her science fair for three years in a row?" Anika informed Rhonda in a half-gleeful, half-mocking tone. "You would've won first place for three years straight if someone hadn't wrecked your project in the 8th grade." Anika turned back to Rhonda. "And it wasn't some baking soda in a volcano, either. What was your project again?" Anika knew Cookie remembered. Lucious had told Anika that Cookie cried about not winning first place for two weeks straight. "Hydro…hydroplaning…"

"Hydroponics," Cookie said quietly.

"And what, pray tell, is hydroponics?" Anika teased. She was having a high time busting Cookie down to size. "Do you even remember, Lori?"

"Growing plants in water." The shame of presenting a project without plants bubbled anew in Cookie's heart. The judges knew sabotage when they saw it - the plants had been cut too cleanly to have been a mistake. But while Cookie's extensive notes and research were enough to award her 3rd place, she had no chance at placing first for the third consecutive year without the examples to back her findings. "What did you do your projects on, Boo Boo Kitty? How many STDs your pussy could hold without you going blind?"

"Cute. Very cute from someone who didn't even go to high school." Anika leaned forward in Cookie's direction, half-whispering and in full blown bougie bitch mode. "I can see you in prison with your little 8th grade education, Cookie, struggling to read Shakespeare. _'Alas poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio'_. Copying all the words you don't know from the dictionary with some bootleg pencil. Hell, Cookie, I can't even call you a high school dropout because you didn't even make it to high school _to_ drop out."

Neither Cookie nor Anika noticed when Rhonda wordlessly slipped out of the truck and made her way back to the restaurant as fast as she could. If there was one thing Rhonda knew Cookie was sensitive about, it was her lack of a formal education. "Funny thing, Lori," Anika continued, "about you never going to high school." Anika leaned back in her seat as Cookie sat straight up, glaring at Anika but allowing her to speak uninterrupted. "Your standardized test scores were off the charts. And you got into some of the best high schools in the state. I've seen your letters from Girls High and Central. Your schedule, all loaded with honors math and honors science. You wanted to be an engineer when you grew up. And then…you met…Lucious."

"You better be real careful right about now, Anika," Cookie warned. She knew what all she'd given up to be with Lucious, and she didn't regret a goddamned thing.

"Oh, that's all. You met Lucious, you got knocked up, you ruined your life. I just have one question, Cookie…why don't you ever tell the truth about how you and Lucious met?"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Cookie asked.

"Come off it, Cookie. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You didn't meet Lucious on the corner of 23rd. You met him at a summer music camp. The Curtis Institute of Music, to be exact." It never made sense to Anika how some homeless street kid like Lucious knew advanced music theory until she came across a box that was a shrine to Cookie Lyon.

Cookie's breathing became audibly ragged as Anika continued. "Did you know Lucious kept all of your instructor's notes? That whole story about how Lucious taught you how to play guitar so Andre would go to sleep? That was a lie, Cookie. Your notes say that you were a genius. Only problem was that you didn't read music. But you could read it by the time you left. You made high marks on all your sight reading exams." How many times had Cookie waved her hand at Lucious's sheet music? _"You know I can't read any of that, Lucious!"_ she'd say. Anika always wondered why she would lie about such a small thing, but Cookie always pretended that she couldn't read music.

The color drained from Cookie's face as Anika continued to expose Cookie's true past. "You know what else Lucious kept, Lori? Those little purple panties you wore the first time the two of you had sex." In a small, wooden box at the bottom of Lucious's sock drawer was a tiny Victoria's Secret bag with a pair of underwear so small that it made Anika gasp. Only the style of the bag itself gave away how old they were. "So let's do the math, Lori, since you were so good at it. Bright future plus Lucious Lyon minus purple panties equals Andre Lyon at what…15? 14?"

Anika's voice was like glass jamming into Cookie ears. She tried to sound bored, and could only hope that the darkness was hiding her shaking hands. Little by little, Anika was bringing to life a young girl who had been dead for years and years, a girl who wanted nothing more than to become an engineer, or maybe a music conductor. She'd dreaded the idea of going to the Philadelphia School for Girls with her older sister, Candace, but then she got the letter stating that she had gotten into Central High School. Even Candace didn't get into Central. _And then…you met…Lucious._ "Make your point, Anika."

"My point, Lori, is that for all your _Boo Boo Kitty_ this and _debutante_ that, at least I'm real. But you? Your background is bullshit, Cookie. 100% custom made." Anika's words were like fireworks exploding. "Your street cred is bullshit. Your love story is bullshit. Your excuses for selling drugs are _complete_ bullshit. You had options, Cookie!" Anika half-shouted, as if Cookie didn't know. "You could've gotten out of the ghetto just like your sister did. You could've gone to law school like Vernon. You could've been a musician, or you could've been a scientist. But you chose to have a baby by a dope-dealing thug, so miss me with your _fo' hunnit thousand dollar_ bullshit."

The more Anika went over Cookie's childhood in Anika's head, the less sense it made. For starters, how in the world had Cookie and Lucious wound up at one of the most prestigious music camps in the world? And what drew a thug like Lucious Lyon to a girl like Lori Holloway? And why the hell did they tell that stupid story about how they met for so many years? "What happened to you, Cookie?" What happened to brilliant young scientist who should have had three first place ribbons handing on her wall next to a Central High School jacket? Cookie had beaten Anika over the head with her north Philly upbringing, and by all account, the Holloway girls were tough as nails. Cookie had her fair share of suspensions for fighting and cutting class, but she still wasn't considered one of the gang girls. She had a future, but she'd thrown it all away before she even made it to the 9th grade. "What the hell did Lucious say to you to make you throw your life away before you even made it to high school?"

The totality of the information Anika had access to for years was becoming clearer and clearer to Cookie. Time and again, Anika heard Cookie and Lucious and even Vernon and Bunkie laugh and joke about that freezing cold day on 23rd, and how Cookie had smoked Lucious in that dance contest. Anika had known all the while that those events never happened. Anika had been waiting for the opportunity to throw it up in Cookie's face, and Cookie gave it to her on a platter. "You already know what Lucious said, Anika," Cookie answered tiredly. She couldn't even bring herself to look Anika in the eye. "You know the whole story. Don't you?"

The cold, calculating smile that came over Anika's face turned Cookie's blood cold. "Yeah," Anika bluffed smoothly. "I do. I know _everything_ , Cookie."

Certainly Anika had looked the same when Cookie announced Anika's abortion to the world, but Anika felt like dirt when Cookie lowered her head, defeated. Anika had longed for the day she could bust Cookie Lyon down to size. But she never thought Cookie would just sit there and take it, staring at the dashboard light, not denying a word Anika had said. For over 30 years, the corner of 23rd was where Lucious and Cookie's love story began. Cookie heard Lucious's rapping. The music overcame her body, and she started doing the Wop. Lucious tried to outdance her. Before they knew it, they had three sons. That was the story, but it wasn't true. The truth was that a thug fell for a high-achieving science nerd.

Still, the more affected Cookie because at being laid bare, the more uncomfortable Anika began to feel. "Cookie?" Tears fell on Cookie's lap as her shoulders shook with silent sobs. She rocked back and forth in the passenger's seat, her hands pressed firmly against her mouth, but it didn't stop Cookie from whimpering. She'd been exposed – and by Anika, of all people.

"Cookie?" Anika asked, become more and more concerned for the older woman. Obviously, Cookie's background story, as fake as it was, was Cookie's coat of armor. But wasn't the rest of the story roughly the same? Music camp in the summer, street corner in the winter… _why so many tears, Cookie, why so many?_

In Cookie's side view mirror, Anika could see Lucious and Malcolm coming quickly towards the truck. Anika looked over at a devastated Cookie and felt even dumber. Had she really just dragged Cookie over some shit that had happened over 30 years ago in middle school, back when Anika was just a toddler? "Cookie, I'm sorry." Anika didn't know why Cookie was so upset by such a small thing, but with all her heart, Anika was sorry. "Look, let's just put this behind us and move on with our lives, okay?

When Cookie looked up and into Anika's eyes, Anika knew that this was about to drag out a little longer. The tears in Cookie's eyes had been replaced with pure, raw hatred. "I'm gonna kill you," Cookie informed Anika. Then she proceeded to attempt exactly that.

"Gun!" Rhonda gasped the minute she burst back into the restaurant and made a beeline for Lucious and Malcolm. "Anika...pulled a gun…on Cookie. I have it," Rhonda added hurriedly as Lucious handed Rhonda the baby and stood. "I took it away. But they're still in the car together and I don't think-"

Neither Lucious nor Malcolm cared what Rhonda thought. As Rhonda hurriedly strapped Andrea to her car seat, Malcolm and Lucious rushed outside in time to see Malcolm's driver's side door burst open and Anika and Cookie barrel out of the truck. Cookie landed on top of Anika's stomach, seized Anika by her hair, and began to beat her head into the concrete with such force that Malcolm was almost certain that his wife was unconscious. A shortage of breath – or lack of breath altogether – would be detrimental to their unborn child.

Within seconds, Malcolm raced across the lot and hooked Cookie behind both of her ears, pushing inwards so that his fingertips drove straight into the nerve-rich soft spots. Cookie let out a bloodcurdling scream that could be heard from around the corner, where the brothers were still talking. Malcolm knelt next to his wife, not daring to pull Anika to her feet. "Are you alright, baby? Are you alright!?"

The sight of Cookie flopping around on the ice like a fish would have been humorous had Anika not been beaten so badly. She was awake, but just barely. Her underwear was filled with urine and feces, and blood was all over face and her clothes. "I don't know…" Anika said over and over through busted, swollen lips. "She just flipped out…"

"What the fuck did you do, man!?" Lucious had reached Cookie, who was still twitching on the ground. He managed to get Cookie to her feet, only to find that Cookie was absolutely hysterical and trying to get to Anika. "I'll kill you!" Cookie screamed over and over. "I swear to God, Anika, _I'll kill you!"_

"What the hell's going on?" Malcolm had sworn he was going to go heads up with Cookie if she hurt his wife again. Now Cookie had put her hands on his wife – his _pregnant_ wife – and Malcolm was two steps away from forgetting that Cookie was a woman.

"She pulled a gun on me!" Cookie shrieked, still inconsolable. It hadn't been all that long ago when Malcolm saved Cookie from another crazed gunman. _One shot, one kill._ Malcolm had shot Reg in the head without blinking. Certainly Malcolm remembered the night he took Cookie from Lucious's arms and escorted her home.

 _C'mon, baby. I got you. You need some air? I got you._

Had it come to this between them? Cookie could barely move her mouth while she watched Malcolm berate Anika for pulling a gun on Cookie. The pain on both sides of her face was agonizing. "Anika, what have I told you about handling guns? Huh?" he demanded when Anika didn't answer. "How many times have I told you to never pull a gun unless you're planning to…" Malcolm's voice trailed when his wife met his eyes with a look of defiance. It might have been the spur of the moment, but Anika had every intention of shooting Cookie Lyon right at that moment. And who could blame her?

"She kicked your truck," Anika said lamely.

"You kicked my truck?!" Malcolm asked Cookie incredulously. Cookie knew how much Malcolm's truck meant to him. She knew Malcolm had spent more money on restoring it than what the truck was worth. She knew that was his deceased father's truck. She knew it, she _knew_ it. "Why'd you kick my truck, Cookie?"

"I kicked the fucking tire! She didn't have to pull a gun on me!" Cookie lunged for Anika again, who shrank back.

"Will you calm do-stop it, Cookie!" Lucious was struggling to hold Cookie in place. They were going to get to the bottom of this, but holding Cookie from Anika was beginning to sap his strength. "Cookie, _stop it!_ What happened, baby?"

Still trembling, Cookie looked up at Lucious, her eyes filled with tears and terror. "She knows, Lucious." Malcolm heard Cookie say to Lucious. "She knows everything."

Lucious's head snapped in Anika's direction, his eyes wide. If Anika didn't know better, she would've sworn that the fearless Lucious Lyon himself looked just as scared as Cookie did. "Knows what?" Malcolm asked aloud. "Anika, what the hell is going on?"

"Anika," Cookie warned before Anika could make a sound. "I swear to God…" It was hopeless. Even Cookie knew better. Anika wasn't going to keep this from her own husband. "If you open your mouth…"Cookie's threats were becoming more and more desperate. It made Anika smile, even with liquid shit running down her legs. _"Hot fun in the summertiiiime…"_

" _Bitch!"_ This time, Lucious let Cookie go. Just as Cookie was just inches away from digging her nails into Anika's face, Malcolm stepped forward and drove a spearhand strike straight into Cookie's sternum, sending Cookie right back to the ground. Malcolm knew was a horrible thing to do, but he wasn't about to let Cookie or anybody continue to attack his pregnant wife. If Lucious couldn't control his wife, Malcolm would.

Lucious, who had sent his wife into attack mode in the first place, couldn't do anything but help Cookie back to her feet. It was starting to hit home that Anika had a champion now. Never again would she just be Cookie and Lucious's punching bag. It was an unfamiliar feeling. "Bitch," he warned Anika while he helped Cookie to her feet again. "if you _ever_ open your fucking mouth to anybody about this-"

"What, like your wife just did a little while ago, Lucious?" Anika shouted. "You don't want the world to know that your little ride-or-die chick was an honor student and not a street kid?"

 _An honor student?_ Malcolm thought as the Lyon brothers made their way over to their parents. _Is that all of this is about?_ That was for another day. "Did you just call my wife a bitch?" he asked Lucious.

"You nasty fucking slut," Cookie spat, barely able to breathe from Malcolm's well-timed strike. "You baby-killing dyke, I swear to God…"

"Oh, Cookie, shut the fuck _up!"_ Malcolm had officially had it with Cookie Lyon. The marriage and the money had gone to Cookie's head, and there wasn't even a shred of the woman he used to love left in her. "Are you still on that baby killer bullshit? Like the world really needed another one of Lucious Lyon's offspring on this earth. How's Lola?" Malcolm added nastily to Lucious.

Lucious and Cookie exchanged looks. So did Andre, Jamal, and Hakeem, who had raced over to try to break up the fight between the couples. Then Cookie and Lucious laughed outright, though it was killing Cookie to do so. "Sorry to break it to you, man," Lucious said, highly amused as Cookie regained her composure. "But it wasn't my little Lyon cub that your wife murdered."

"What?" Suddenly, Anika had everywhere to look but Malcolm. _It wasn't my little Lyon cub_. It wasn't Lucious's child that Anika had aborted. So if it wasn't Lucious… "Andre?" Malcolm asked incredulously.

"Andre?" Andre repeated. "Hell no, Andre. Nuh-uh." Andre had nothing against Malcolm or Anika, but Andre had his own marriage to think about. "Sorry, Malcolm. But the kid ain't my son."

"But…" Malcolm looked at Jamal, then Hakeem. Jamal turned away, but Hakeem held Malcolm's gaze. Then a slow, licentious smirk spread over his face. Hakeem hated Malcolm for what he'd done to his mother. He hated Malcolm for being so large and so powerful that Hakeem couldn't exact revenge for his mother. Even if Hakeem and _both_ his brothers all attacked Malcolm, Hakeem had a feeling that Malcolm would bounce them all like rubber balls. But Hakeem still had a way to hurt Malcolm. Malcolm was parading this crazy bitch around like she was really worth something, but Anika was damaged goods.

"It was me."

Everyone, Anika included, turned to face Jamal, who was standing with his arms crossed and a determined look on his face. "What?" he asked Malcolm, who looked like he didn't know whether to yell or fight or crack up laughing. "I've been with women before. Hell, I just slept with a woman not too long ago. Look," he continued when the sides of Malcolm's lips began to twitch. "I was having a bad night, and I went to see Anika. We got drunk, we hooked up…later, she told me she was pregnant and I told her to get rid of it. I'm sorry, Anika," he said to Anika, who still hadn't looked up. "I'm so sorry. About everything."

The sad thing was that Jamal really _was_ sorry for everything that was happening, even though he'd had no hand in any of it. Malcolm knew Jamal hadn't touched Anika. But for whatever reason, Jamal was allowing Anika to walk away from this situation with a little bit of dignity. In his own way, Jamal was truly the best of all the Lyon men.

Malcolm looked at Jamal and nodded appreciatively. He looked over at Lucious and Cookie and dared them to dispute Jamal's ridiculous story. They didn't. Malcolm turned his body to where nobody could see what he was saying, except maybe Jamal. "Do you need me to take you to the hospital?" he asked Anika quietly. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." All Anika wanted to do was to get home before Cookie could gloat that she had _literally_ beaten the shit out of Anika. "Can we go home now? Please?"

In spite of everything, Malcolm offered his arm to his wife, who looped her arms in his. "You're my wife," Malcolm whispered, putting his finger under Anika's chin and tilting it upward. "So hold your head up high." Anika nearly fainted with relief. They'd have it out later, for sure, but if Malcolm was prepared to call Anika a cradle-robbing pedophile and hand her a stack of divorce papers, he wasn't about to let on just yet. For now, at least, the DeVeauxs were as united as the Lyons were.

"Nice seeing you all again," Malcolm said to the Lyon family as they both strolled past, Anika with her head held high. As much as Malcolm longed to have Cookie arrested for what she'd done to his wife, there was the little issue of Anika having a gun held to Cookie's head. It was too much for Cookie to stand. This bitch had held a gun to her head and had the nerve to be walking around with her nose in the air. "You might be standing here with your little war hero husband and your raggedy-ass teaching job," she shouted at Anikas's back, "but you're still nothin' but a pussy-eating tramp."

" _Summertiiiiime,"_ Anika sang over her shoulder, _"and the livin' is eeeee-seeeee…"_ This time, Lucious, Andre and Jamal all had to hold Cookie back. " _I swear to God! I'll fucking kill you!_ _ **Anika!"**_

Malcolm chuckled. "So Cookie was an honor student, huh?" he asked, opening his truck door to let Anika inside. Malcolm had a million questions, but his top priority was getting Anika home. They could have it out later.

"Malcolm, I'm so sorry," Anika said. She knew her husband could smell the piss and shit on her coat as he buckled her in.

Malcolm just winked at Anika and kissed her on the lips instead. They could talk about what had happened when they got home. Lord knew it had to be a doozy, because Cookie was still going crazy. _"I'll kill you, bitch!_

Anika stuck her head out of the window. _"I never dreamed you'd leave in summer…"_

"That's enough, Anika," Malcolm chided, smiling. He could see the rage in Cookie's eyes, though he had no idea what in the world was making her so angry. He didn't care, either. To hell with Cookie Lyon. "What's she so mad about, anyway?"

"Oh, she's mad because I know that Cookie met Lucious at some ritzy summer camp, not in the streets like they've always claimed. And was in the summer, not the winter."

"Really?" Malcolm asked, surprised. "So Cookie's been faking the funk all the years, huh?" Anika dissolved into giggles, gathering her ruined coat closer to her legs. _Thank_ _you, God,_ she thought, squeezing herself. _Thank you for bringing Malcolm to me._

"You know," Lucious observed as Malcolm secured Anika into her seat, "you should take your bitch to Vegas and let her put on a show. I think prostitution is still legal there."

"Nah," Malcolm retorted, closing the door as if he didn't have a care in the world. "I think I'll take her to see the Running of the Bulls. Does Cookie still like bulls, Lucious?"

 _Oh, my God,_ Anika thought. She'd told Malcolm about Laz and Cookie in confidence, just as Hakeem had told her in confidence. Never in a million years did Anika think that Malcolm would stoop so low as to throw it back in Cookie's face, even if she did deserve it. Lucious would've done the exact same thing, of course, but Anika expected Malcolm to be a better man than Lucious. It was the one thing Malcolm had promised her while they were in Spain a few months: that no matter what, he would always, always treat Anika better than Lucious did.

Much later, when Malcolm was alone and had time to think about the night's events, he would wonder what drove him to take such a cheap shot. Cookie's hands flew to her mouth, and Hakeem's hands began to shake. Malcolm, in just two sentences, had reduced Cookie to nothing, and he'd done it with no effort whatsoever. No amount of abortions or Lyon family affairs on Anika's side could equate to Cookie sleeping with the man who slept with her for money _and_ set up an attack on her youngest son. Even before Lucious lunged for Malcolm, Malcolm knew that he'd gone too far.

Lucious – who could still move like lightning at his age – cracked Malcolm with a punch so hard that Malcolm's body turned almost completely around as it slammed into his own truck. It was a blow that would've knocked out most men. But Malcolm wasn't most men, and even on ice, he kept his balance. Feet planted - and without thinking - Malcolm reflexively balled his fist and twisted his body in the opposite direction.

"Malcolm! _No!"_ From up in the truck and surrounded by mirrors, Anika had a vantage point that the others didn't. She saw the ice, the sidewalk curbs, and the five-inch parking blocks that were on the ground, and she knew that life as they knew it was about to end. " _ **MALCOLM!"**_

It was too late. Malcolm unleashed a backhand strike with so much force behind it that Lucious's body moved sideways as his feet flew out from underneath him. Even with the parking lot block being a good five inches off the ground, the side of Lucious's head _still_ slammed into the ground, moving in an unnatural angle as his body lay on the other side of the block. In the midst of all the noise and confusion, Cookie heard the sickening sound of bones crunching, while Anika's only consolation was knowing that Lucious was unconscious before he hit the pavement and rolled onto his back, his eyes focusing on nothing and gazing into nowhere.

If blood had been coming from Lucious's nose and mouth, Malcolm wouldn't have started counting the years he knew he was about to lose to prison system. But when Malcolm saw clear fluid pouring from Lucious's nose and mouth, he started wondering if he would ever hold his child. What would Malcolm be charged with? Assault? Manslaughter? Murder? That Malcolm was defending himself from Lucious would mean nothing, he already knew. Malcolm was the Navy SEAL, the one who was always supposed to be the better man. Time and time again, Malcolm was tested from assholes near and far, and he never rose to the bait. Not this time.

"Lucious! _Lucious!"_

The sound of Cookie screaming her husband's name over and over would keep Malcolm awake for weeks and stay buried in his mind for the rest of his life. _"Lucious! Lucious!_ Lucious, wake up, baby… _Lucious!"_ Cookie cradled Lucious's face in her arms. This was what she had feared back when she was young, only she had nightmares that Lucious would be riddled with bullets, not laid out by an ex-SEAL. "Lucious! Baby, can you hear me?"

Lucious's eyes were still and unfocused, and brain matter continued to leak from his nose, ears, and mouth. "Don't do that," Malcolm said without thinking. "He'll choke."

Cookie whirled around to see Malcolm sitting on the bumper of his truck with his head in his hands, not bothering to make a break for it. His wife wouldn't even come out of the car to comfort him, and Malcolm didn't blame her. In the distance, Malcolm heard the sound of sirens. This _was_ the YouTube era, after all, and Malcolm wouldn't have been surprised if the while incident had been live streamed. "Cookie," Malcolm began. "I didn't mean to hurt him. I'm so-"

Malcolm didn't even shield himself from Cookie's blows or her fingernails clawing at his face, aiming to gouge his eyes out. " _You killed him!"_ Cookie screamed over and over as the parking lot filled with police cruisers, complete with flashing lights and handcuffs. " _You killed my husband!"_


	5. Don't Leave Me This Way

_Note: MDC stands for Manhattan Detention Center._

* * *

"Aggravated assault. Eight years. Good behavior gets him out in five."

"No charges. No years. He gets out today."

"C'mon, Annalise!" District Attorney Raquel Alvarez had had it up to here with this obnoxious Philadelphia attorney, who seemed to have had her New York bar card reactivated just to aggravate her. "Lucious Lyon has been lying in a coma for the past six weeks-"

"So what?" Annalise scoffed. "It's not my client's fault that Cookie Lyon doesn't know when to say when."

"Wow." Alvarez's eyebrows shot skyward. "You really put the a-s-s in 'classy,' Keating. This is a hell of a deal. If Lucious Lyon dies, I'm upping the charge to murder. He pleads down to manslaughter if he's lucky."

"If you'd stop using Google to find things to charge my client with, maybe I'd be more concerned." _Assault in the first degree_ was a ridiculous enough charge, but once Alvarez offered to plead Malcolm down to _attempted involuntary manslaughter_ – a crime that didn't even exist – Annalise knew she was dealing with a lightweight. "Look," Annalise said. "I'm sick of Lucious's wife all over my TV with her grieving widow bullshit while a _real_ hero is rotting in solitary confinement at Rikers."

"He stabbed an inmate, Annalise," Alvarez reminded her.

"To save his life, Raquel." Annalise yanked out the incident report from Rikers Island and threw it across the table. "Even the guards said that kid would've died if my client hadn't drained that abscess in his thigh."

"With a _shiv,_ Annalise? I could charge him on that alone."

"But you won't," Annalise predicted with a shrug. "DeVeaux should've never been there in the first place because he was never a flight risk. That was your doing, wasn't it, Alvarez? The overcharging, the denial of bail, indefinite solitary...all of this is your doing. If I didn't know better, I'd think Malcolm DeVeaux nearly killed _your_ husband."

"If he wasn't a flight risk, then why did his wife leave the country?" Alvarez countered, side-stepping Annalise's insinuations.

Annalise laughed. "You're going to penalize my client because his pregnant wife went back to her native country? Something she had every right to do?"

"Nobody told your client to mouth off to the judge during the bail hearing." After about 10 minutes of hearing what a menace to society he was - dialogue was that undoubtedly coached by Thirsty Rawlings - Malcolm cut the judge off and told her to get on with it. The judge was kind enough to tack on a contempt of court charge before she dropped the bomb: no bail. Anika had screamed and fainted at the time, but according to the press, Malcolm didn't move a muscle, didn't as much as glance back at his wife as they took him away. "Why would Mr. DeVeaux's wife run if she didn't have anything to hide?"

"Well, let's see." Annalise flipped through her files once again, retrieving a thick stack of papers. "Here are some of the kinder things being said about my client's pregnant wife on social media. Lessee _...bitch, we're gonna rape you til you have your baby and then we're gonna kill it and you...Betta not catch that ho in the street or else I'ma put all my bullets in her chest...I'm gonna cut that bitch's stomach open and stomp her baby..._ pictures of her house, her family's house, her phone number, her car." Annalise mused for a second. "It's kind of strange how they go after Mr. DeVeaux's wife and not Mr. DeVeaux, isn't it?" Both women paused to reflect on Annalise's statement, and then it was back to business.

"Ohhhh. Here's a real treat." Alvarez struggled to keep her breakfast down as Annalise showed her a picture of a mutilated dog, his head crushed in and male anatomy missing. She smirked as Alvarez vomited at the sight. Annalise had done her shaking and crying long before now; she could sit in front of this half-assed lawyer with a spine of steel. "You know that's Ms. Calhoun's real dog? And that's her real doorstep, which the killers were so kind enough to leave said dog, take pictures, record video and upload to the internet. All in the name of Empire." Casually, Annalise flipped to the next photo. "Would you like to see what they did to the pregnant female and her puppies?"

"You can't blame any of this on Empire," Alvarez said between swigs of water. She could wash the taste of vomit out of her mouth, but she would never get those images out of her mind.

"I can when the Lyons allow these kinds of posts on social media every day without comment. They're inciting and encouraging violence against my client and his wife. And speaking of my client's wife..." Annalise rifled through her files once more, then pulled out a medical file. "The emergency room report shows that Anika Calhoun was treated for multiple contusions to the back of her head and numerous facial injuries. They also took pictures of the choke marks around her neck. Would you like to see those? Or maybe you'd like to read the witness statements of the three people who saw Cookie Lyon beating and choking a pregnant woman in the parking lot?"

"What is your point?" Alvarez moaned, watching her case fade away. She was in over her head and they both knew it. If the situation was reversed – if Annalise was pulling for Malcolm to stand trial – she would somehow be able to figure out how to have Malcolm do time. But Raquel Alvarez wasn't Annalise Keating. Raquel Alvarez was a disgraced former deputy mayor, having been forced to retire after being found in a relationship with a man who was less than savory. Alvarez could rebuild herself as a district attorney, but only if she didn't make a fool out of herself. And Alvarez was definitely about to make a fool out of herself.

"My point is that you're not going to win. You're new to this whole litigation thing, so let me paint you a picture." Alvarez had been an attorney for 12 years prior to becoming deputy mayor, but as far as Annalise was concerned, the bitch had apparently worked her whole life at the Law Offices of Mama n'Nem. "On one side, you have Lucious Lyon. Whatever he is, he's still a scum drug dealer with a scum drug dealing wife. On the other side, you have Malcolm DeVeaux. War hero. Navy SEAL. Young and good-looking, with his beautiful, pregnant schoolteacher wife. Lucious Lyon might have support in the streets, but once I fill a jury up with old, white conservative men, it's over for you."

Annalise's voice was so cold that Alvarez dropped her gaze. "And you, Alvarez? Your new career is going to be as buried as your old one. I know that you're trying to destroy Lucious's attacker to curry favor with his oldest son. You really thought a Philly lawyer would defend a guy who beat up one of our native sons without a good reason?" Annalise leaned across the table with a cruel smile. " _Why do you think I'm here, you dumb cunt?"_

Alvarez's jaw dropped. It was Andre who came to Alvarez in the first place, begging for justice for his father. He was afraid that Malcolm would get off because he was a war hero and a SEAL. _"Just because my father used to deal drugs doesn't give Malcolm DeVeaux the right to try to kill him,"_ Andre had told her, and because Alvarez's heart still beat for him, she had gone after Malcolm as if Malcolm had killed her own child. Now Alvarez could see that Andre had set her up. It was one thing for a defense attorney to get Malcolm off, but it looked much better if the DA's office let him go. That was exactly what Andre was intending to do, with a little help from Annalise Keating. No one would ever know Annalise had anything to do with Malcolm's inevitable release.

"Nobody is going to prosecute this man, Alvarez. So let's do you a favor and save what is left of your beshitted little career." Annalise spoke as if she was trying to mentor Alvarez, rather than fight off a plea bargain. She threw a thin folder on the table and rose to her feet. "I expect you to give this statement on the front steps of your office building by 3:00 this afternoon."

Annalise stood and looked down at the once deputy mayor, now reduced to trying bullshit cases in a cramped, tiny office. "Look at it like this, Alvarez. You'll come out looking like a hero. You'll have the conservative vote. You'll have the female vote. You'll have the gun nuts who always talk about self-defense, the military veterans and their families...you'll even get the black vote for letting a brotha go free."

"Annalise," Alvarez said weakly, knowing it was all over. If she went through with prosecuting Malcolm, she'd be the laughingstock of New York City. But she desperately needed a conviction – any conviction, any charge. "Assault in the third degree. He'll get credit for time served. At least give me that, Annalise," Alvarez pleaded.

"I'm _giving_ you the speech you're about to make a few hours from now." Annalise smiled brightly. "Take your time. A-nunn-ci-ate. Make it sound like it's coming from the heart. Your first speech as a district attorney should be very sincere." Annalise winked and left.

For nearly an hour, Alvarez sat in her office, head down, reeling in Andre's betrayal. Later that night, she'd learn that there was no ER report and no witnesses because Anika had refused to go to the hospital or speak to the police. The truth was that Annalise would've destroyed her either way. Alvarez flipped open the folder, took a deep breath and began to go over her lines for the sake of her job. " _After weeks of considering the evidence and hearing witness testimony..._ "

* * *

"... _the district attorney's office has declined to press charges against Malcolm DeVeaux. We have reached the decision that Mr. DeVeaux was acting in self-defense in order to protect himself as well as his pregnant wife..."_

"The fuck!?" Hakeem's words sounded louder over the echo in the hospital room. The clang that his chair made as it hit the floor brought three set of eyes in his direction. Lucious, as always, remained unmoving.

"Isn't that the lawyer you used to work with, sometimes, Andre?" Jamal asked, just as shocked as his brother was. "I thought she was a friend of yours!"

"She is!" Andre sat down and put his elbows on his knees, using his hands to hold his face upright. "I went to her myself...I-I-I told her I wanted justice for my father...how could she possibly look at Dad's injuries and not press charges? And what about Mom?"

"What about Mom?" Cookie asked quietly from her husband's side. Carefully, Cookie placed a warm face towel on Lucious's face, preparing him for a shave. "You wanna know what Mom is thinking, Andre, ask Mom."

The good news was that Lucious would live. _**HEART OF A LYON,**_ read every web site, magazine and newspaper that printed Lucious's name. The victim of a vicious attack from a former Empire employee at the behest of his ex-fiancée would live on to roar again, not that anyone had any doubt. Lucious was a soldier. A warrior. There was nothing he couldn't survive.

The bad news was that Lucious would live. _Traumatic brain injury_ , the family was told that night. Until Lucious gained consciousness, the totality of the damage couldn't be measured, but what was certain was that Lucious would never walk again. At best, Lucious would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. At worst, he'd lost all use of his arms and his legs, paralyzed from the neck down. And that was if he woke up. _If..._

"You'll see," was all Cookie said, and walked away to let her sons deal with the rest.

Cookie waited until she got home to let her rage out. How could those doctors say that Lucious would never walk or talk again? Didn't they know who her husband was? Lucious Lyon was a man who overcame any obstacle that stood in his way. With Cookie by his side, Lucious could do anything. Lucious would feel Cookie's love and come back from the other side. He would walk again, talk again. _"My husband is Lucious Lyon!"_ Cookie screamed aloud, then collapsed and cried until she fell asleep on the music room floor.

It took a hood doctor – straight out of Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn with a background similar to Lucious and Cookie's - to pull Cookie to the side about a week later and be straight with her: Lucious would never walk again. "No, never again," he repeated gently when Cookie began to shake her head. That's when Cookie began to bargain with herself and with God. She knew that Lucious would be devastated to wake up and not be able to walk, but he would get over that in time. Cookie was certain of that. Lucious could still hold a guitar, play a piano, hold his granddaughter and his wife. Cookie would see to that.

"You can't lie in bed like that," a well-meaning nurse told Cookie one day, but backed down when Cookie jumped on her and had to be physically restrained by her sons. For a six-digit figure in hush money, the nurse left the hospital and a larger bed was moved into Lucious's room so that Cookie could lie next to him comfortably. Lucious's heart still beat as strongly as ever, and it guided Cookie to sleep night after night. "You are Lucious Lyon," she whispered night after night for hours on end. "You can make it through anything. You're a Lyon. Do you hear me, Lucious?" _Can you hear me, Lucious?_

With the snotty nurse gone, the medical faculty became Cookie's second family. But nearly a month later, pictures of Cookie's faithful bedside vigil hit the press: Cookie praying with Lucious, sleeping in bed with Lucious, shaving Lucious's face – all the private moments between a man and his wife were for the world to see. The one that bothered Cookie was most was the picture of her trimming and filing Lucious's toenails, as if Cookie's place in her life was to be at her husband's feet. Overnight, Cookie became the patron saint of hood wives, and fuckboys around the world held Cookie up as an example of what a real woman should be.

Cookie often wondered if Anika was the one who leaked the photos somehow, if she had someone working in the hospital for her. Around the time Lucious was documented as being in a vegetative state, the Navy SEAL's wife waltzed right past the upgraded security and stood at Lucious's doorway as if she'd been invited. Cookie wasn't even surprised, and she was far too exhausted to care. She knew why Anika was here. She also knew that Anika wasn't the photo-leaking type.

"You know," Anika said slowly. "I can handle losing my job because of the death threats. And I know you were behind Malcolm not making bail. Slashed tires, broken windows, 24-hour security...I can take all that. Dead dogs? I don't blame that on you, even though you could at least make a statement or something about how you don't want your fans to take revenge on us or something like that. But did you have to make my husband disappear, Cookie?"

"What are you talking about?" Cookie asked, not looking up from trimming Lucious's hair.

"You know what I'm talking about, Cookie," Anika fired back. "He's not at MDC anymore. He's fallen off the face of the earth. I know that you know where he is."

"Do I look like the county courts to you? I have better things to do than to worry about your husband, Boo Boo Kitty – and shouldn't you back in the Cayman Islands by now?" It figured that Anika was the kind of woman who would run at a time like this. She wasn't built for this life. "I know your scary ass is about to take off. Just like a little bitch."

Furious, Anika dropped a thick stack of papers on Cookie's lap. "Read them," she said, her voice hard as nails. "Read them out loud and then tell me that I'm a bitch for going back home. My husband isn't here to protect me, so hell yeah, I'm going back home until he gets out."

" _If_ he gets out." Cookie tossed the stack of papers to the ground without looking at them. "Why are you here?"

"I want to know where the hell my husband is, Cookie," Anika demanded. "I know you had him moved, Cookie. I _know_ it was you!"

"So what is it was?" Cookie said smartly. "I don't have to tell you anything. Go find him. It's not like he's going anywhere," she added with a laugh.

"Cookie, why are you doing this?" Anika swore she would be strong in front of Cookie, but Anika wasn't prepared for Cookie's unbothered attitude. "I understand that you hate me, but why do you hate Malcolm so much?"

"Uh, hello?" Cookie gestured to Lucious. "Does any of this ring a bell?"

"No, Cookie. I mean before that."

"I don't have a problem with Malcolm," Cookie said, turning her back so Anika couldn't see her face. "It's you I can't stand."

"No, Cookie. I think you do have a problem with Malcolm. I think you think that Malcolm is a punk, and you pushed Lucious into that fight to see Malcolm get his ass kicked. You wanted to emasculate him right in front of me because you couldn't stand that he was with me. Didn't you?"

"Anika, please. Stop it, okay?" Cookie snapped. "Like you didn't want to see Lucious get his ass kicked."

"I didn't! I tried to stop it, Cookie! None of us would be here if you would have helped me!"

Anika's words had hit their target. A million times, Cookie had relived that night, thinking of all the things she could've done to prevent this from happening. God, why couldn't she just congratulate Anika on her upcoming pregnancy and left it at that? Lucious and Malcolm might have exchanged blows and Anika might have even pulled a gun on her. But if anyone was to pinpoint the moment everything went to hell, everything that was happening was because of Cookie, not Malcolm _or_ Anika, or even Lucious.

"Cookie," Anika continued, oblivious to Cookie's pain. "Why are you pretending that Malcolm wasn't defending himself? You _know_ Malcolm wasn't trying to hurt Lucious!"

"But he _did_ , didn't he?" Cookie stood up, wanting nothing more than to scratch this bitch's eyes out. Anika had the nerve to sneak past her security, was possibly behind her pictures being leaked to the press, and now she was bombarding Cookie with questions. "Anika, get the hell out before I throw you out. I'm warning you."

"I'm not going anywhere until you tell me where my husband is!"

"Oh, my God! You and this 'my husband' shit!" It was the same thing that annoyed Cookie the night Lucious fell. No real wife said _my husband_ all the time like Anika did. It was like Anika was so happy to be claimed by somebody that Anika just had to let it be known she was a wife, as if Cookie wasn't a wife at age 14. "You got my leftovers, Boo Boo Kitty. Don't ever forget that."

"Well, thank you, Cookie Lyon! _Thank...you!_ " Anika fell to her knees. "Is that what you want to hear? Thank you for my old job! Thank you for my _new_ old job! Thank you for your 17-year sacrifice and your _fo' hunnit thousand_ motherfucking dollars – no, wait, make that eight hunnit thousand motherfucking dollars. Thank you for Malcolm! Thank you for every fucking thing that has _ever_ been good and wonderful in my life! And most of all – _and I do mean most of all, Cookie_ – thank you for taking Lucious from me so I don't have to hear him tell me that he would never leave me for _your_ bitch ass anymore!"

 _I'm not leaving Anika for you,"_ Lucious had told Cookie long ago, and Lucious _hadn't_ left Anika. Rather, Anika had left Lucious, and where would Cookie be if she hadn't? Boo Boo Kitty was right - Cookie had been a side chick all those years ago. "Are you happy now, Cookie?" Anika asked, sobbing openly now from the floor. "Here I am on the floor, praising your glorious fucking name and everything you've bestowed upon me! _Now_ _give me my husband back!"_

" _No!"_ Whatever soft spot Cookie might have had in her heart was destroyed by Anika's caustic words and disrespectful behavior. "Until Lucious wakes up, I'll never tell you where Malcolm is, Anika!"

Anika knew full well that Lucious had been unconscious for over a month by that point. "Why are you doing this, Cookie?" Cookie turned her back to Anika, willing her heart to turn to stone. "This isn't even about Malcolm – this is about me! So get back at _me_ , Cookie!" Anika begged. "Hit me, beat me – kill me, Cookie, but _please_ don't do this to Malcolm! What has he ever done to you, Cookie? What did he do that made you hate him so much?"

" _He married_ _ **you!**_ _"_

Before Anika could respond, a nurse came through the door. "Mrs. Lyon! Ms. Holloway!" She turned to Anika. "I'm sorry to intrude on you like this, Mrs. Lyon, but you and your sister are going to have to keep things quiet. If my boss hears this, I'll lose my job."

"Sorry, Bibi." Even at times like this, Cookie wasn't a snitch. "We'll keep it down." After Bibi closed the door, Cookie glared at Anika. "So you're my sister now. Which one, Candace's bougie ass? Or Carol the crackhead?"

"You're amazing," Anika muttered. She shook her head, disbelieving that a woman who was supposedly so happy in her marriage was so bitter. "You get back together with my fiancée, throw me out of the company I helped put on the map, beat my ass on a pool table and basically buy my job, and you still hate me because I married a man you broke up with? _Why do you even care?"_ All this time, Anika thought Cookie hated her for being the woman that Cookie wasn't. Now she knew that Cookie hated Anika because Malcolm was in love with her, even though Cookie wasn't in love with Malcolm _..._ was she?

"You don't deserve him, Anika," Cookie responded dully, more to convince herself than Anika. Anika had no right barging into Lucious's room, talking to Cookie as if they were equals. "You're a ho who'll bust it open for anybody who can further your career...come to think of it, I'm insulted that you didn't offer me a little licky-licky in exchange for some information. That's how you normally operate."

"You know what, Cookie? I'll be goddamned if I get judged by some bitch who got knocked up at summer camp right after her first menstrual cycle." Just like that, the power in the room shifted. "Let me make something clear to you, _Lori_ ," Anika continued as Cookie shrank back. "I _do_ deserve Malcolm, no matter what you or anybody in your family thinks. _I am worthy of his love_. And you know what else?" Anika continued. "You hate me because you'll always be nothing more than Mrs. Lucious Lyon, the girl who could've been a composer or an engineer, but decided to get pregnant when you were 13."

"14," Cookie said reflexively.

"13, _Lori,"_ Anika repeated forcefully, and her eyes were as cold and hate-filled as Cookie had ever seen. "You were born in September. That made you 13."

"If you bring that up to me ever again, Boo Boo Kitty," Cookie warned, "I swear that my face is the last thing you'll ever see."

Anika smirked. "I'll ruin your ass by the end of the night, Summer Breeze, unless you tell me where Malcolm is."

Whether Anika was serious or not, Cookie had no idea. All Cookie knew was that she had spent her whole life protecting her family, and this high-yellow bitch had the means to ruin everything in a matter of minutes. Only three people in the world knew exactly what had happened in the summer of 1984, and they were all standing in Lucious's hospital room. Even Cookie's mother and sisters never learned the _whole_ truth, just parts of it. But Anika knew everything, and if she ever told what she knew..."Rikers," Cookie informed Anika, defeated.

 _"Rikers!?"_

"Yeah. Solitary confinement." Even with so much at stake, Cookie took pleasure at the haunted look on Anika's face. "And no, I didn't put him there. He stabbed another inmate with some kind of knife or something, so you're not gonna be able to see him anyway. He's actually safer in the box, you know. Lotta niggas locked up who would love to take out the man who almost killed Lucious Lyon. I'm impressed he's made it even this long."

 _Solitary confinement._ Anika's knees gave way and she slid back down to the ground and wept, not caring what Cookie was thinking. _"What is wrong with you, Cookie?"_ Anika whispered, and she could say no more.

Anika on the floor for the second time that day was more than Cookie could stand. "Carol, Candace, whoever the hell you are, get out. I have better things to do than to listen to you cry because some people said some mean things about you. And if you come back again, I'm instructing security to shoot you on the spot." Cookie glared up at Anika, her heart filled with white-hot hatred for this spoiled brat. "Go find your husband so everybody can forget what a ho you used to be. Do you even love Malcolm, Anika?"

"Do you?"

Before Anika left, she leaned over, whispered something in Lucious's ear, and kissed him on the forehead. Anika had loved this man once in her life, for many years. She harbored no ill will towards Lucious, not anymore. Lucious was a sick human being who needed Cookie to be made whole. Despite everything, Anika's heart went out to Lucious – and to Cookie, too, for being faced with such a horrible situation that she had created.

Anika didn't take back the photos of her mutilated dogs or any of the hateful messages she'd printed out. She didn't need to. There would be more waiting for her when she got home. "You know the worst part about all of this, Cookie?" Anika waited for a response that she knew she wouldn't get. "You could stop all of this if you really wanted to. Just like you could've stopped it that night."

Anika left without giving Cookie the chance to deny Anika's words, not that Cookie would have – or could have - done so. As Anika did nearly every night for weeks on end, she found one of Malcolm's shirts, wrapped herself in it and cried herself to sleep yet. Just before she fell asleep, a thought crossed Anika's mind: Cookie never did say whether she loved Malcolm or not.

Lucious always said there was no such thing as bad press, but Cookie was sick to death of dialogue and think pieces pitting two black men against each other. Either Lucious was a scumbag who got his or Malcolm was a ruthless killer who nearly killed his wife's ex-lover. Either Lucious was the light of his community and a shining example of rehabilitation or Malcolm was the war hero who was brought down by _those_ kinds of black people, the kind that weren't SEALs and debutantes. Everybody had an opinion, yet nobody was interested in the truth - that two assholes got into a fight and Cookie's asshole lost.

So while her sons were angry that Malcolm was going to walk over nearly killing Lucious, Cookie only felt relief. It was over. Now they could all move on. "Turn that off, boy. We gotta talk about something as a family."

After a battery of tests over a number of weeks and changing Lucious's status from minimally conscious to vegetative, the doctors made an all-but-positive guarantee that Lucious was paralyzed from the neck down. If ( _that word again!_ ) Lucious came to, he would have to learn how to talk again, if he was able, and would need around-the-clock medical care. Just like that, Cookie knew what Lucious would want her to do.

All day, Cookie had practiced the words over and over, and now it was time to speak them aloud. Cookie closed her eyes and took a breath. It was cowardly, but she couldn't bear to see the looks on her sons' faces when she broke the news to them. "I'm taking your father off life support at the end of the month. _Sit down,"_ she instructed Hakeem before he could even speak, even though her eyes were closed.

Hakeem didn't sit down. He paced the room, desperately trying to figure out where to direct his emotions. "If he's able to breathe on his own, then he'll probably die in a few days...if not, it'll be about an hour. He'll be sedated, Hakeem, and-"

Hakeem cut his mother off with a wail of pure anguish, then ran out of the room, crying. Just when Hakeem had gotten back the family that Andre and Jamal had enjoyed, it was gone. "Go get him, Jamal," Cookie instructed. "I need to talk to your brother."

Andre was _really_ beginning to hate hearing those words, but he was the eldest Lyon son. The man of the family once Lucious was gone. "Yes, Mama?" he asked when they were alone.

Cookie stared at Andre so long that his heart dropped. He knew what was coming. "Against your own father, Andre," Cookie said quietly. There was no emotion in her voice; Cookie was merely stating a fact. "Why?"

"Because it was the right thing to do." Unable to avoid this conversation, Andre sat down heavily in the chair that Jamal had abandoned. "Mama, you've let this go on too long. Hiding Malcolm away like you did...it's not right. You _know_ it was an accident. You could've said something that night, but you just let them put Malcolm in chains and drag him away. And to hear the press calling Malcolm a thug over and over...maybe it's because I'm a black man, Mom, but I couldn't stand to hear it anymore. Malcolm's not a thug and you know it. He never should've gone to jail."

Deep in her heart, Cookie knew everything Andre was saying was the truth. The night Lucious broke his neck, Anika pleaded with Cookie from Malcolm's truck to tell the cops that the whole thing had been an accident, but Cookie turned deaf ears to Anika's cries. Cookie wanted Malcolm to suffer in jail until Lucious woke up, at the very least, then she would go to the district attorney's office and drop the charges. Andre explained to Cookie later that she had no say in whether charges were brought against Malcolm or not. Malcolm was already in Rikers by then, and Cookie had been walking in a fog ever since.

"You're right, Andre," Cookie conceded. "I don't like it, but I respect it. But you went behind my back, boy, when you contacted Alvarez so she could overcharge Malcolm and get him released when it was all over. That's the problem."

"What about you, Mama?"Andre asked testily.

"What _about_ me, Andre?"

"Why did you hire Annalise Keating to be Malcolm's lawyer?"

Cookie cocked an eyebrow at Andre's accusation, but Andre's gaze stayed steady. Finally, Cookie smiled. "Nothing gets past you, Andre," she admired.

"Of course not. I'm my father's son."

"Yes, you are, baby." Cookie reached out, took one of Lucious's hand and kissed the back of it. "I know Lucious wouldn't have approved of how I handled this. I was just so _mad_ at Malcolm, Andre." Andre took Cookie's other hand and squeezed it. "But Lucious wouldn't have wanted this to happen to Malcolm. In fact," she added with a chuckle, "he probably would've given Malcolm his props for getting that shot in."

"Yeah, you know Dad. _Damn, mayne. That was good licks, mayne."_ Cookie cracked up at Andre's spot-on impression of his father. _"I need to work out, mayne. Damn.'"_

"My little Pufnstuf," Cookie giggled. She tenderly leaned over to kiss Lucious on the cheek, then sobered up when she saw how gaunt his face was becoming. "I just...I just needed it all to go away, you know? I don't want to think about trials and lawyers and all of that stuff. I have to save my energy to bury my husband." Cookie's breath caught at the words. "If I thought he'd let me, I'd take care of your father for the rest of my life. I swear I would, Andre. But I know this is what Lucious would want me to do."

All of those things were true, but it didn't stop the agony and guilt Cookie was feeling. Andre swallowed Cookie up in her arms as she cried softly. He felt like crying himself, but he couldn't, not as the man of the family. Andre was free to grieve in private, with Rhonda and little Andrea. But here, Andre had to be the rock of the family for his mother and his brothers. It was his job to comfort his mother until she was calm again, just like Lucious would've done. "It's alright, Mama," Andre soothed, rocking Cookie as if she was the child, not Andre. "

Later that night, Jamal and Hakeem came back in the room a little while later to find Cookie lying in bed with Lucious, her head on her husband's chest, as Andre read to them both from the Bible. "Is she sleep?" Hakeem asked, his voice hoarse and eyes bloodshot red.

"No," Cookie answered from where she was lying down. Hakeem walked over to the hospital bed and kissed his mother on the cheek. He was the most devastated of all, even more so than Cookie. But as Jamal explained to him, their mother wasn't "killing" their father. _"Dad died when he hit his head, Hakeem,"_ he explained through his own tears. _"You know this is what Dad would've wanted. We have to let him go."_

"Thank you, baby." Cookie knew that Hakeem would be affected the most, as he had no pre-prison memories of Lucious and had been working to make some post-prison memories of the man that he loved, but never really liked very much. Now, he would never have the chance unless...there were still two weeks left...maybe, just maybe...

 _No, Cookie,_ Cookie reminded herself, remembering the words of the Bed-Stuy doctor. The chance that Lucious would wake up one day between now and the end of the world was slim, but not impossible. Still, the quality of Lucious's life was shot. He would never hold his wife again, never play the piano, never walk or talk. Even keeping him alive for two more weeks was cruel, Cookie knew. But there was still that sliver of hope Cookie had in her heart that Lucious Lyon would live to roar again. _Forgive me, Lucious, but I have to take that chance._

"Mama," Jamal said quietly over the beeps and the hums of the machines that kept his father alive. "Tell us The Story."

The Love Story of Lucious and Cookie. The Lyon Myth. It was Lucious's story to tell, not Cookie's. She'd heard it a million times, but only from Lucious's lips. The words would feel so strange on her tongue. "You know what?" she said as she got out of the bed and sat in the plush chair next to Lucious's bedside. "Andre, you're the oldest. You tell it."

"Me?" Andre's eyes widened.

"Yeah, you. Lemme make sure you got all the details right so you don't go messing it up for your kids."

"Okay." Everyone laughed as Andre leaned back and crossed his right leg, leaning back just like Lucious did any time he told The Story. "Well, it was the fall of 1984, and..."

"It was _collllllllld,_ " everyone said together. Mother and sons cracked up, just like they always did.

 _("Move, Lucious! It's too hot for all that, dang!")_

"Let's see," Andre had heard the story so many times that he could almost see himself there in the crowd. "Dad was on the freestyling on the corner on 23rd. And you got caught up in the music and started doing the Wop. Dad tried to out dance you. He lost the faceoff, but he got you."

 _("What is that, Bach?"_ )

"And from the time the two of you met each other," Jamal continued, "you were inseparable. Just like now."

"That's right," Cookie interjected with a smile. She took Lucious's hand, kissing the back of it. "From the very beginning, we decided that we were never going to leave the other one behind."

 _("How could you just leave like that, Cookie!? You just ran away and didn't even tell me goodbye!")_

"So right off the bat," Hakeem continued, "you and Dad started doing the Grown-Up..." He nudged Cookie, who dropped her head and groaned playfully. It wasn't like her sons didn't know where babies came from, but it was still kind of embarrassing. "You knew right away that you and Dad wanted a baby."

 _("You're_ _**pregnant?** _ _Cookie, what the fuck?!")_

"And you two were so happy to learn that you were having me," Andre bragged.

 _("I'm sorry! Lucious, I swear I didn't mean for this to happen! I'm_ _**sorry** _ _!")_

"Dad knew about a law in Philadelphia that said that you could get married if you were pregnant," Jamal continued. "So even though you were 14, you were old enough to get married. That was the plan all along, of course."

"Of course," Cookie reaffirmed. "I was pregnant...God, I think it was like, a month after we met? Real close. Just like we planned so we could get married."

 _("Lucious, are you crazy? I can't marry you - I'm only 13!")_

"And your mama had a fit," Hakeem said, picking up The Story, "but you didn't care because you and Dad were in love. You were going to have a family, no matter what your mama said."

 _("You might as well fix your face, Loretha, 'cause you ain't about to live in my house with no baby! You gettin' married as soon as you turn 14!")_

"Only we didn't get married right away," Cookie added. "I moved in with my sister because me and Lucious had a fight. I don't remember what it was about."

 _("So you're gonna sit on your ass and collect welfare like everybody else? You don't have a problem with being a mother, but you don't wanna be my wife?")_

"And then you and your sister got into a big fight," Andre went on. "Do you remember what it was about, Mom? Dad never said."

"You know me and Candace never got along. Could've been anything," Cookie admitted. "I don't remember what it was about that time."

 _("I drop off money for you and the baby every two weeks...you ain't got none of it? I swear. I give it to your sister every other Wednesday.")_

"Anyway," Cookie said, "after listening to my sister's mouth for a few weeks, I decided it would be better for all of us if I got married. My mama wasn't happy, but once we talked to her, she decided that we would be better off together as a family."

 _("Cookie, everything is going to be okay. I promise. You and me and the baby...we're going to be a family. I'm gonna take care of you, I swear.")_ At least _part_ of The Story was true.

"And then came me," Andre finished proudly, standing up and throwing out his arms in a Randy Watson-type pose. "Six pounds, four ounces." He laughed as his brothers booed and pelted him with napkins and cotton balls, then playfully pretended to hide behind Cookie.

"Six pounds...that's kinda big for a preemie, isn't it, Ma?" Hakeem asked. Andrea had been about the same time, but she wasn't born two months early.

"Boyyyy, if I'da carried your brother those whole nine months, he would've killed me." Cookie smiled at Andre, who sat at his mother's feet and placed his head in her lap. "Did I tell the story right, Mama?" he asked.

The Story. The myth. The legend of Lucious and Cookie. For years after their marriage, Cookie had braced herself to deny the accusations of a classmate, or an old landlord, or a picture from summer camp, but nobody ever did. Maybe it was because Lucious went by the name Dwight Walker for a while, but how many black kids could've possibly been at the Curtis Institute of Music in the summer of 1984? Cookie remembered one or two black girls – bougie girls, like Anika – and a pair of African brothers. Either one of them would've been hard to miss. It was like the entire world had conspired to keep Lucious and Cookie's true origin story a secret.

Cookie looked up at her beautiful sons, so happy in their retelling of The Story. It was a part of their history - literally, as Empire's rise was a part of music history. Cookie would be damned if anybody, especially some fake-ass Halle Berry, was going to destroy the Lyon legacy. Only three people knew the complete story of how Lucious and Cookie met, and only two of them could talk. Cookie had no problem cutting that number down to one if Anika ever approached her again with Cookie's summer secret.

"Mama?"

Cookie lovingly stroked the unshaven cheek of her oldest son - her six-pound, four-ounce _premature_ son – and rewarded Andre with a kiss on the cheek. "You got it just right, Dre," she said, and Andre beamed. "That's just how it happened." Then Cookie bit her lip until it bled.


	6. Going to the Chapel

_Notes:  
_ _CAPA High is the Philadelphia High School for Creative & Performing Arts._

 _References_ :  
 _"What have I told you..."_ From **Déjà Vu.**

* * *

 _Curtis Institute of Music  
June 1984_

"Lori?"

"Dwight?" Cookie scowled up at the gorgeous, light-skinned boy who had gotten her into so much trouble in the first place. "What do you want?"

Dwight Walker smiled and flashed his assistant instructor badge. "I'm your warden for lunch and dinner detention for the next three days." He held up stacks of music theory books and blank sheets of music paper. "Might as well get started."

"Are you serious?" Cookie tossed her fork in her chicken-fried steak so hard that gravy splattered onto her camp t-shirt. The brilliant sophomore from CAPA High who worked as an assistant instructor to cover his tuition first spotted Lori Holloway on the third day of camp. She was singing and dancing to Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Til You Get Enough" in the square outside of the cafeteria during lunch. Cookie was at her boldest then, mesmerized by this older boy as he effortlessly played along with his acoustic guitar. Cookie lifted her shirt up to show her navel as she gyrated her hips as seductively as a 13-year-old could. She got hit with three days' lunch and dinner detention for her trouble.

"First of all," Cookie corrected, all Badlands teen girl attitude, " _nobody_ calls me Lori except these white teachers. My name is Cookie."

The boy nodded. "Well...my name isn't really Dwight," he admitted.

"It's not?"

"Nah. It's Lucious. Lucious Lyon. And...I'm not really a sophomore at CAPA like everybody thinks I am," he admitted. "But don't tell anybody, okay? If they knew who I really was, they'd never let me stay."

Cooke couldn't have handled Dwight Walker, the college-bound 10th grader from Chestnut Hill. But Lucious Lyon from south Philly was a hustler who had done what he had to go to get where he wanted to be – into Curtis, into dinner detention as Cookie's sight-reading instructor, and later into Cookie's dorm room. He'd even paid money to have Cookie moved from a double dorm into a single one. There was only one way a guy like Lucious could make that kind of dough.

The first time Lucious snuck into Cookie's dorm, they laid on their backs side-by-side in Cookie's bed and talked about their love for music and their plans for the future. Cookie told Lucious about how she hated school at the Franciscans and how she got into Central and wanted to be an engineer, and even how she cried when some kids at school ruined her science fair project two months prior. "That's messed up," Lucious mused, taking Cookie into his arms for the first time. "You work hard and jealous-ass people wanna mess up your stuff. What was it about?"

"What, my science project?"

"Yeah."

"Hydroponics."

"What's that?" Nobody had ever asked Cookie before, because nobody ever cared.

Temperatures grew hotter as the summer went on, and so did Lucious and Cookie. Lucious always brought cold treats for Cookie – ice cream or a cold soda or a Tas-T-Freez – and they would work on music together. Every night ended with a frustrated Cookie sweeping sheet music to the side with tears in her eyes. "I don't need to learn this shit!" she cried one night, then snatched Lucious's mini-Casio keyboard from his hands and played a complicated classical piece with great flourish.

"What is that, Bach?" Lucious asked, impressed. He was an excellent pianist, but classical music wasn't exactly his thing.

"No, Haydn. And I didn't need to learn no damn music theory to play it, either," Cookie grumbled. But Lucious urged Cookie to stick with it until Cookie could finally read the notes and symbols on Lucious's paper – a song that he had written just for Cookie. That was the first night all their clothes came off, and they were both left panting and trembling, clinging to one another and mutually blown away. It wouldn't be the last.

"Move, Lucious!" Cookie teased night after night when it was all over and Lucious – street thug that he was – wanted to cuddle with the girl he had fallen so hard for. "It's too hot for all that, dang!" Of course, it was never too hot. Lucious and Cookie laid in each other's arms every night, dreaming about the future and learning new ways to please one another. The daytime was for learning and rehearsing and trips and lectures, and Cookie didn't actually see Lucious much during the day. But the nights belonged to them.

Their last night together, all Lucious had was a cup of ice to bring her, but it felt wonderful against her skin in the heat. Lucious caressed Cookie across her neck, her swelling stomach, her sore and tender breasts and everywhere else, always warming her back up with his lips and his tongue. In time, Cookie would do the same. She knew that only hoes took their boyfriends in their mouths, but then again, eating a girl out made a dude gay, and Lucious was definitely all man. To hell with them, Cookie thought as she fell asleep in Lucious's arms. _We'll make our own rules._

Cookie had prayed and prayed that she was wrong, but the stolen test from the corner store turned pink before Cookie finished washing her hands. She couldn't bear facing Lucious and telling him that she was pregnant. How would he react? She'd seen the way boys treated their girlfriends when they got pregnant. "We'll take care of it," Candace promised when Cookie called her in tears. "Just come home."

With four nights left before the final summer performance – after all the rehearsing and all the practicing and all the nights with Lucious going over sight reading - Cookie slipped out of her dorm room without even leaving Lucious a note. Lucious would never want her with a baby, and Cookie had both their futures to think about. Breast milk and Bunsen burners just didn't mix, and neither did Pampers and pianos.

Lucious, as it turned out, had other ideas. Even now, Cookie had no idea how Lucious found out where she lived, but he was banging on her door and yelling her name so loud that Cookie had no choice but to drag him into her house, even though her mother wasn't home. "How the hell did you find me!?" Cookie gasped.

"How could you just leave like that, Cookie!?" Lucious grabbed by the shoulders before he held her in his arms. "You just ran away and didn't even tell me goodbye!" And Lucious began to babble about how much he missed Cookie, even though they hadn't even been separated for a week. He didn't know what he'd done wrong, but he would fix it, and he was sorry for what he'd done or what he hadn't done. "Cookie, please, don't break up with me," he begged, and by that time, Cookie was crying. Nothing Cookie could say would make Lucious stop loving her, except...

"Lucious, I'm pregnant."

Just like that, Lucious became the boy that Cookie just knew he would be. "You're _pregnant?_ Cookie, what the _fuck?!"_

"I'm sorry!" Cookie grabbed at Lucious's arm, but he jerked away from her. "Lucious, I swear I didn't mean for this to happen! I'm _sorry!_ " Until then, Cookie didn't realize how much Lucious's opinion meant to her. Lucious made her feel beautiful and wonderful and loved, and she wanted to hang on to that feeling for the rest of her life.

"Pregnant...oh, my God..." Lucious began to pace back and forth. The anger and hurt in Lucious's eyes was what Cookie had been trying to avoid when she slipped away in the middle of the night. He would never be the boy who brought her cold treats again, and that made Cookie cry even harder. "I can't believe this...how could you, Cookie? How could this happen!?"

"I'm sorry," was all Cookie could say over again. The boy who bought her frozen drinks and wrote her songs and danced with her in front of everybody in the quad was the boy she wanted to remember for the rest of her life. To Lucious, Cookie was special. Now, she was as common as all the rest of the neighborhood hoodrats. "I'm so sorry, Lucious...I didn't want to tie you down..."

Lucious stopped pacing. "You know what? Fuck it." He took Cookie by her waist, and the look in his eyes was half love and half insanity. "Cookie, let's get married."

" _Married!?"_

"I know this is crazy, and I know we just met. But I'm in love with you." Right in the middle of Cookie's living room, Lucious went down on both his knees. "I want you to be my wife. We'll get married, okay? You me, the baby...we can be a family. And I'll take care of you."

"Lucious, are you crazy? I can't marry you - I'm only 13!"

"But when you turn 14, we can get married. As long as you're pregnant and your mother agrees-"

"I can't just marry you because I'm pregnant! And I barely know you! Shit, I didn't even know your real name until you told it to me!" She was about to say that her mother would never marry her off to a 15-year-old dope-dealing thug, but Cookie wasn't sure if that was entirely true.

"So you're gonna sit on your ass and collect welfare like everybody else?" Lucious asked as he got back to his feet. "You don't have a problem with being a mother, but you don't wanna be my wife?"

 _I'm not going to be a mother,_ Cookie thought, but knew that Lucious would lose his mind if he knew she was having an abortion. "Look, I like you, Lucious," she added, her heart breaking as Lucious's face crumpled up. "I really do. But I'm not dropping out of school just to get married and have a baby."

"I don't want you to drop out of school!" Lucious cried. "You can still go to school. You can do whatever you want to! Just...please, Cookie, don't leave me again." Cookie couldn't believe that there were tears in Lucious's eyes. "I swear I'll take care of you," he begged, pulling Cookie close to him. "Cookie, _please_ don't leave me again. Please! I _love_ you, Cookie Holloway."

"I..."

" **Loretha!"**

All the blood in Cookie's brain rushed to her feet. She scrambled to stand, but felt so dizzy that she had to sit down. "M...Mama?"

"Why you got a boy in my house and I'm not home?" Jeanette Holloway demanded. "You know better! And who are you, anyway?" she asked Lucious. Jeanette knew all the local boys in the neighborhood, and this glinty-eyed DeBarge wannabe definitely wasn't one of them.

 _Oh, God._ Cookie could see the determination in Lucious's eyes. She knew what he was about to do. She just knew it. "Please, Lucious..." Cookie said weakly. "Please, don't..."

"You hear me talkin' to you, boy?" Jeanette asked again.

Lucious looked over at Cookie, her eyes pleading with him not to ruin her future. But Lucious already knew that he had no future without Cookie. "I'm Lucious Lyon, ma'am," he introduced himself, looking Jeanette square in the eye. "I'm here to marry your daughter so we can raise our baby together."

* * *

"Ooh, I could've killed you!" Cookie chuckled and stroked Lucious's unmoving face. "You just stood there tellin' all our business...you went for it, boy. And you got it." Cookie kissed Lucious on his chin. "You got me."

Cookie cried for days when Jeanette ordered Cookie to pack her things. She didn't know Lucious from a can of paint, and Jeanette was already making Cookie move in with him. Cookie begged her mother not to kick her out of the house, especially since school was starting the following month. But the last thing Jeanette wanted was Carol around a teenage mother. _"You might as well fix your face, Loretha, 'cause you ain't about to live in my house with no baby! You gettin' married as soon as you turn 14!"_ Who knew it would all work out the way it did?

As for prison, Cookie had to forgive Lucious for that. He did what he thought was best, as did she, and they'd both made mistakes. The truth was that Cookie had the strength to live without Lucious, but Lucious couldn't live without Cookie. As awful as it sounded, it was a kindness that Lucious would die before she did. But to die at 47...Cookie never thought her life could be any crueler until now, wanting Lucious to wake up and wanting him to die so she wouldn't have to be the one to make the decisions that would ultimately take his life.

There were three days left in the month. Come Monday, Cookie was slated to take Lucious off life support. No matter how many logical statements were made, no matter how much it was the best thing to do – for Lucious, if not for anyone else – the closer the date time to setting Lucious free, the weaker her resolve.

"Mrs. Lyon?" Bibi asked from the doorway. "I'm sorry, but visiting hours..."

"Oh!" Cookie didn't realize how much time she'd spent with her husband. "Sorry." Cookie gathered her things and kissed Lucious goodbye. "I'll see you tomorrow, baby," she promised and left.

 _Please wake up, Lucious, I can't be without you..._  
 _Please go ahead and go, Lucious, I'll see you when I get there..._  
 _Please, Lucious, die so I don't have to be the one to kill you._

As she did nearly every night, Cookie's last stop – other than the candy machine – was the hospital chapel. Cookie hadn't gone to Mass since she left the Franciscans, not even when she was in prison. Lucious wasn't particularly religious, and Cookie wasn't the kind of hypocrite to call on God just because her husband was dying. But she found peace there. Sometimes, Cookie prayed with Andre. Sometimes she prayed with all her sons. During the day, there were one or two people there. They'd always share their stories and pray for one another's loved ones or friends and comfort one another.

Late at night, like now, the chapel was usually empty. Cookie felt most at peace when she was alone. Most of the times, she didn't even pray at all. She just sat silently, taking in the peace and the silence. Tonight, she wasn't alone. There was one other person there, a man. He was stock still at the kneeling altar, head down, so solemn that Cookie could almost see the light and love of God radiating all around him. Even from the back, Cookie knew exactly who it was.

 _"Malcolm."_

From the kneeling bench, Malcolm turned to see who had called his name. When Malcolm he saw Cookie, a bolt of rage shot through his body that was so intense that it nearly blinded him. It didn't go past Cookie, who almost trembled in his presence. Malcolm no longer had that beautiful aura around him. He looked hard and mean. Rikers mean. "Hello, Cookie," he said, and there was no respect in his voice this time.

"What are you doing here? Get out!" Cookie ordered. How dare Malcolm walk around free, breathing the same air as her husband while he lay dying?

"Cookie, you can't make me-"

"Get out!" Cookie demanded. _"Get out!"_

"It's a public hospital, Cookie." Malcolm turned his back to her. "I'm praying. And I'd appreciate it if you'd leave me alone." Malcolm had quite a bit to pray for. Nobody would ever believe him, but Malcolm had actually gotten used to solitary in Rikers. All this freedom was driving him a little crazy. Malcolm actually found himself staring into space, missing his floating dots, sad at the loss of his roach friends. For days, he flicked the lights on and off, on and off, disbelieving that he could. He still wrote his wife several letters in his mind, as if he couldn't just call her on the phone.

And there was one more thing, one very shameful thing: Malcolm couldn't hold an erection to save his life. Back in the navy, it wasn't unusual to have to discipline himself to an extreme level to keep sex off his minds. A lot of times, it was necessary just to stay out of trouble and avoid catching a case or a disease. A lot of the guys sat around in solitary jacking off – how, Malcolm had no idea – but he'd just cut his mind off instead. Now he couldn't turn it back on. Not even two straight days of hardcore porn had done anything for him.

How could Malcolm face his wife again when he couldn't perform like a man? What possible explain would Malcolm have for not being able to make love to his wife when he hadn't seen her for six weeks? He desperately wanted to talk to Anika. He'd missed her so much that only the memory of her kept him alive in solitary: _Dear Anika, I'm so sorry this happened...dear Anika, I'm dreaming of the day that we can be together again...Dear Anika..._

"I should've let your ass rot," Malcolm heard Cookie say.

Malcolm turned around again. _Right, Cookie._ Cookie was the reason why all of this had happened. Lucious being damn near dead. Anika being gone. Malcolm being frozen from the waist down. "Cookie," Malcolm said in measured words. "I can't make you leave. But I can ask you to leave me the hell alone. And if you push me, I _will_ make you leave me the hell alone."

"Like you did Lucious?" Cookie spat.

Malcolm shrugged. "If it comes to that, fine."

 _If it comes to that..._ it was official. The Malcolm DeVeaux Cookie knew was dead, and she'd killed him just as sure as she'd killed her husband with her actions and her words. "Is that a rosary?" she asked absentmindedly, gesturing towards the small piece of jewelry in his hands.

"Yes," Malcolm informed Cookie, not too kindly. He wondered how Cookie could remember such a thing, then remembered that Cookie had been a product of a Catholic school upbringing. Just one more way that this miserable woman was a fraud.

"Why are you saying a Catholic prayer if Lucious isn't Catholic?" Cookie asked.

"What makes you think I'm praying for Lucious?"

"Because you're here." The animus in Cookie's heart started to fade. There was a tiny glimmer of the old Malcolm there, still. "There's no other reason why you'd be at this hospital unless you were praying for Lucious to get better."

"I'm not praying for Lucious to get better."

"Then what are you praying for, Malcolm?" Cookie felt herself growing heated. Was Malcolm praying for Lucious to die now that he was out of Rikers?

"I'm praying that God's will be done." As much as he disliked Cookie, he didn't want to hurt her. "And as for why I'm using a Catholic prayer, we believe in the same God...I think. Praying the Rosary makes me feel better."

"About all this?" Cookie asked, waving around her.

"Yeah. About all this," Malcolm admitted. Hurting Lucious, losing Anika, and Cookie...well, to hell with Cookie.

"Did you pray the Rosary at Rikers?" Cookie asked, curious as to the source of Malcolm's strength.

"Several times a day," Malcolm answered, then turned around again. It was hard not to stare at him. He looked so calm and devout and...beautiful. Like an ebony statue come to life, strong in his faith. So strong that he came out of a hellhole unscathed.

"Can I pray with you?" Cookie blurted. There was something about Malcolm that was so sure and so peaceful that she longed for a part of it. The peacefulness, that was, not the man who possessed it. She desperately wished for that kind of composure, even if Malcolm wasn't the one with the dying spouse.

Perhaps Malcolm knew what was in Cookie's heart, for instead of telling Cookie to go to hell, he gave a small gesture. Cookie knelt next to Malcolm at the altar, and they both crossed themselves. "In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit," they said together. _Cookie hadn't said the Nicene Creed in over 30 years,_ but she still remembered it as if she was still at school. _"We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all that is, seen and unseen..."_

Cookie closed her eyes and tried to focus on the words, which she'd spoken hundreds of times in her life. She found that the words still brought her comfort. But would they be as lovely if someone else was saying them, and not Malcolm? Malcolm's voice was so calm and soothing, just like it had been when they were together in the Berkshires. As the two of them made their way through the notoriously long prayer, Cookie's mind began to wander before she even knew it.

* * *

Puberty didn't stop just because a girl was pregnant, and Cookie's pregnancy wreaked havoc on her still-growing body. Over and over again, Cookie cursed Candace into convincing her to keep her baby. Cookie thought Candace was nuts – especially with this sudden change of heart – but Candace was sure that they could so it. Cookie was smart enough to miss a year of school, though her English scores were nothing to brag about. The two of them would raise the baby together. "We're Holloway girls, right?" Candace asked when Cookie wasn't so sure.

"We got this," Cookie finished, and they smiled and hugged.

Candace might have been a bougie bitch, but she was right more times than most. Besides, she had done one thing that Cookie would always be grateful for: she'd stopped the marriage that her mother was trying to force between Cookie and a 15-year-old street kid. _"Get out of here! I told you, she's not gonna marry you!"_

" _Just...can I talk to her? Please? Cookie?_ _ **COOKIE!"**_ Knowing that her older sister was a freshman at Penn State, Lucious had done the totally rational thing and asked nearly every black student on campus about a Cindy Holloway until somebody figured out he was talking about _Candy_ Holloway and pointed Lucious in the right direction.

" _Do you see her standing here, Lucious? She don't wanna talk to you!"_ That wasn't exactly true. Cookie missed Lucious so bad that it hurt. But that half-crazed boy in her living room who declared his eternal love to her...who the hell was that? She was scared of him.

It was a relief when Lucious stopped coming around, until he showed up _again_ when Cookie was at her most miserable. Five months. Too far along to abort, not nearly close enough to shit the damn thing out. "Why are you here?!" Cookie demanded. "And how the hell did you keep finding me, anyway?" She still had no idea how he'd found her the first time.

"Chill, shit!" Lucious was hoping for a truce, at the very least. "I just came to bring the money you asked for, that's all. I didn't wanna send this much through anybody else."

"I ain't never asked you for no money!" Holloway pride made Cookie's back as straight as she could make it. Why the hell would she ask Lucious for money when she hadn't even told him she was going to keeping the baby?

Cookie could see that Lucious was trying hard not to stare. He saw something in Cookie's blossoming motherhood that Cookie couldn't see. "So you saved up enough money for the doctor? That's cool. Is everything okay? I'm sorry I was late this week, but-"

"Late for what?"

"For the money. You know, for the baby."

"Lucious, I ain't never asked you for no money. Me and my sister are taking care of my baby!" _We're Holloway girls. We got this..._

"I know. You all independent n'shit. A feminist," he spat out, though deep down, it was Cookie's feminist attitude that kept Lucious so sprung. "Well...keep it." Lucious pulled out a thick wad of bills, more money than Cookie had ever seen in her life. "You can buy a nice crib or something...maybe start a college fund. Add it with the rest of the money, okay?"

"Lucious, what in the hell are you talking about? What money?"

"The money I've been giving you for the baby," Lucious answered back. "What do you think I'm talking about?"

"The money for the baby...what, you send it in the mail or something?"

"What? Hell, no! I drop off money for you and the baby every two weeks."

"Drop it off where?"

"Drop it off here. With your sister. You ain't got _none_ of it?" Lucious asked, confused. "I swear. I give it to your sister every other Wednesday."

"My sister? Candace?" Candace, who went with her to every doctor's appointment, who had converted her spare bedroom into a nursery, who sat around with a baby book while they strung together crazy names for the baby. Who, just days after they'd planned to go to New York for Cookie's shady-ass abortion, had suddenly encouraged Cookie. _We got this..._

"Cookie?" Lucious asked. "Cookie, are you okay?"

She'd been crying and she didn't even know it. She just knew that Lucious's arms around her were the most comforting thing that could happen to her. Candace, her own sister, had been stealing the money that was meant to take care of her child. And Lucious – who she hadn't even spoken to in months – had been taking care of Cookie and her baby all this time, not even knowing if he would see her again. Lucious still went out of his way to provide for her, for the family he had begged Cookie to make with him.

Even worse, Cookie realized as she looked over the letter that she had supposedly written, the letter asking for $3,000 to see the doctor hadn't been written by Candace after all. Cookie could see how Lucious was fooled, for Jeanette, like Cookie, had impeccable cursive writing, whereas Candace wrote in a sprawl. Jeanette had gotten greedy, and that was the only reason why Lucious was here. "You know they wasn't giving me the money, right?" Cookie asked. Candace was her mother's girl, and she wanted nothing more than to earn Jeanette's love. It was the only thing that kept her sister's face intact, though Cookie never forgave her.

Lucious nodded sadly. "I was hoping you might get some of it."

"Do you still wanna get married?" Cookie barely recognized her own voice, and she didn't see the joy in Lucious's eyes when he hugged her and kissed her and told her they would be together forever. But would her mother sign the paperwork...? For the $3,000 she'd asked for, Jeanette did exactly that. By the end of the week, Cookie Holloway was Cookie Lyon.

 _"Cookie, everything is going to be okay. I promise,"_ Lucious pledged while they laid in bed after it was all over. _"You and me and the baby...we're going to be a family. I'm gonna take care of you, I swear."_ Lucious knew the circumstances behind their marriage were terrible, but he didn't care. He had Cookie, the love of his life, and he would be a father soon. Despite everything, Lucious was ecstatic. Cookie, on the other hand, felt nothing at all.

* * *

"Cookie?"

Cookie opened her eyes, startled by the glare. "Huh?"

A ghost of a smile crossed Malcolm's lips. "Prayer's over, Cook." He was surprised that Cookie didn't pass out on her knees – the Rosary wasn't a prayer that one tended to say with eyes closed, and she'd stopped praying long ago. She was exhausted, Malcolm could tell.

Cookie stood up and stretched. "Why do you pray for Lucious if you hate him so much?"

"Face it, Lucious could use all the help he can get. And you're not here to discuss the Catholic faith with me, Cookie." Malcolm rubbed his neck, which had been bent in prayer for nearly an hour. "You're here to start another fight with me. No haps."

"You beat the charges," Cookie reminded Malcolm coldly. "So why are you here, praying for my husband?"

"Is it that hard to believe that I don't want Lucious to die?"

"Well, he's going to. So much for your prayers, Malcolm." The good will Cookie was beginning to feel towards the altar boy was beginning to fade. "He's going to suffocate to death or starve to death, but he's going to die next week. I have to do it, you know." Cookie's voice began to waver. "I have to be the one to kill my husband because of _you!"_

"You have to take your husband off life support because you can't stop running your mouth, Cookie. I couldn't even have _Jesus_ to myself, and you hate me."

"I don't hate you!" Cookie denied, which was true. Not even with everything that happened. Deep down, Cookie knew she was the catalyst for all of this, but it was so much easier to blame it on Malcolm, and _especially_ Anika...Anika. Anika. _"How could you marry her, Malcolm?"_

"Who, Anika?" Malcolm asked, confused as to where Cookie was going with this. "What does my wife have to do with anything?"

"My wife! My wife! _My wife!_ " Cookie exploded. It was almost as bad as Anika's _my husband_ hang-up. "Why do you always say that? Do you have to remember that she belongs to you instead of being community coochie?"

Deep down, Malcolm didn't know whether to laugh the insult down or slap the shit out of Cookie. "Community coochie," Malcolm repeatedly quietly. He was leaning towards the latter.

"Do you have any idea what kind of girl she is?" Cookie asked, almost pleading with Malcolm to reconsider. "I could understand you gettin' with her, maybe making her your side chick, or even your _main_ side chick. But you gave her your last name! And she's having your baby? Or at least she says she is-"

"Watch your mouth." Malcolm's voice could have cut steel, and Cookie knew she'd gone just a step too far. Then she remember Malcolm's quip about Cookie liking bulls and became furious all over again. "What? What are you gonna do, hit me?"

"What are you going to do if I do?" Malcolm asked evenly. It went unsaid that running to tell Lucious would never be an option for Cookie again. Tears filled her eyes and she just shook her head, disbelieving that Malcolm would say such a cruel thing. "Why are you so worried about my wife's past, Cookie?" Malcolm asked, genuinely curious as to the older woman's ire. "Why are you pressed about Anika, Cookie?"

"I'm not pressed," Cookie denied. "I'm lookin' out for you, Malcolm. You're trying to turn a ho into a housewife, and that ain't good."

Malcolm let out a rip of a laugh. " _This_ from somebody who got pregnant at 14."

 _13,_ Cookie thought reflexively, but she slapped Malcolm so hard that he staggered anyway. "Don't you _ever_ compare me to that bitch again, Malcolm _."_

Malcolm rubbed his jaw and glared at Cookie. The old Malcolm would've at least apologized. The new Malcolm antagonized. "You always thought I was soft, Cookie," he said in a voice carried a bit of a threat. "Be honest. Ever since that time at the gas station, you always thought I was a punk. You wanted me to be all up in that guy's face like, _'Ey, mayne? You talkin' to my bitch,_ _mayne_?" Malcolm mocked Lucious to a T. _"I'ma fuck you up, mayne.'"_

 _"You shut up!"_ Cookie slapped Malcolm again, even though he was right. On the way back from the Berkshires, Malcolm and Cookie had gone inside a gas station to pay for gas and some snacks. The minute Malcolm left to pump gas, another man came up to her and startly flirting with her, openly so. Malcolm, always silent in his steps, was behind the rent-a-thug in a heartbeat. _"Cookie?"_ he asked. _"Are you ready to go?"_ And that was it. Lucious would've cut out the guy's tongue, but Malcolm didn't even raise his voice. The ride back to New York was silent, and breaking it off with Malcolm had been easier than he would've ever suspected. Deep down, Cookie knew that Malcolm was just as tough as Lucious was. But Cookie liked her men rough and rugged, and Malcolm's vagina was bigger than hers, as far as Cookie was concerned.

"You _are_ a punk, Malcolm," Cookie finally choked out through her tears. "The only reason why you married that bitch is because you know you could never handle a woman like me. You like weak-ass hoes you can take to your _friend's_ cabin and make them feel pretty."

Malcolm winced at the words _friend's cabin,_ but fired back. "I'm so sorry that I made a weak-ass ho like you feel pretty, Cookie."

Enraged, Cookie reached up to slap Malcolm again. This time, Malcolm caught Cookie hand and bent it ever so slightly, just enough to cause Cookie discomfort and politely remind her that if Malcolm wanted to, he could snap her wrist like a twig. "What have I told you about putting your hands on me, Cookie?"

A smirk spread across Malcolm's face that chilled Cookie to the bone. "Let me go," she instructed, trying to hide the fear in her voice.

"You're pathetic, Cookie. You know that? _Pathetic._ Being a SEAL and defending my country - that wasn't enough for you. But sitting around in some bullshit day camp like Rikers? That really turns you on, doesn't it?" Malcolm looked Cookie up and down the way she'd done to him at Lucious's house so long ago. " _This_ is turning you on, isn't it?" He smirked at Cookie, whose face was starting to flush. "Look at you, getting all juiced up."

"You're sick." But even now, Cookie knew that, despite how it appeared, Malcolm would never hurt her. Lucious would've put Cookie in her place long before now. The fact Malcolm that was taking charge of the conversation made Cookie almost respect Malcolm as a man. Almost.

"You know," Malcolm observed when Cookie didn't even deny Malcolm's accusation, "if you were more honest with yourself, you probably wouldn't be such a miserable human being. You can't even tell the truth about your nerdy-ass past or even when and where you met your husband. Like that's some big-ass deal."

Highly annoyed, Malcolm began to walk Cookie to where her back was up against the rectory office wall, around the corner from the front. Cookie had no choice but to walk backwards or have her wrist broken. "You look down on my wife," Malcolm hissed, his lips brushing Cookie's ear and making her shiver, despite everything that was happening. "But at least Anika didn't rot in prison for 17 years behind some sorry bastard who divorced her the minute he had the chance. And then you married him again, Cookie. Don't you know what a joke you are in these streets, marrying a man who dogged you like that?"

"Please let me go," Cookie was begging now. She was trapped in this room with this killer who could break her in a million pieces. So why did feel so safe at the same time?

Malcolm released Cookie's wrist, but Cookie didn't move. Malcolm pulled Cookie so close to him that he could feel Cookie's heart beating against his own chest. Intertwining his fingers with her, Malcolm held Cookie's hand up to his lips and kissed her throbbing wrist. Tears pooled in Cookie's eyes, and they spilled down her cheeks when Malcolm cupped her face in his hands. _"How could you marry him, Cookie?"_

Whether Malcolm kissed Cookie first because he didn't know what else to say or Cookie kissed Malcolm because he didn't have to say anything, neither one of them were sure. All Cookie knew was that just for a few minutes, Cookie wasn't planning a funeral. She wasn't watching the man she'd loved all her life wasting away before her eyes. She wasn't praying for a miracle. Just for now, Cookie did not have be Mrs. Lucious Lyon, the salvation of Lucious Lyon. And Malcolm, who had watched porn for days with no physical response, was so hard that Cookie could feel him throbbing against her stomach.

Cookie ran her hands up and down Malcolm's chest as he palmed her ass in his hands and squeezed gently. Malcolm felt so good...but he didn't feel _right_. Malcolm's body was too chiseled, his hands too large, his grip too rough. His lips were as soft and full as Cookie remembered, but they didn't know the secret spots all over Cookie's body. Lucious's body fit Cookie's body like a glove. Malcolm fit Cookie's body like a pair of shoes that were half a size too tight.

With horror, Cookie realized that not only was she kissing another man, _she was kissing the man who killed her husband._ Furious, Cookie shoved Malcolm away and slapped him so hard that he bit his tongue. "How dare you?" she said tearfully. _How dare to come to me acting like Lucious?_

A slow, cruel spread across Malcolm's face. "I'll wear it like a kiss," he taunted. Before Cookie could say anything else, Malcolm walked over to the priest's pew, found a pen, and scribbled his address on a small sheet of paper. "Come see me when you're done here," he said bitterly. "And while you're at it, pray for both our souls." Because Malcolm knew he was certainly going to hell for this little stunt.

"Are you serious?" Cookie couldn't believe what Malcolm had just suggested. "You think I would betray Lucious with _you?"_

"You just did. See you soon," Malcolm called over his shoulder, leaving Cookie in the chapel, still crying. That meant that Malcolm had also betrayed Anika, but that wasn't the point just then.

* * *

In his youth, Malcolm had always been the rash one, the one who did things without thinking. Jump off the highest diving board? Go get Malcolm. Malcolm. Ride the fastest, tallest roller coaster? Malcolm. Hotwire the principal's car? Malcolm. Flash the commandant during the annual inspection? Malcolm, as if his bare black ass couldn't be identified in a school that was 96% white.

But this? This was more than crazy. This was tempting fate. His crazy-ass ex at his house while her husband lay dying... _what the hell was I thinking, inviting her here?_ Right about then, Malcolm didn't even want to see Cookie right now, and possibly never again.

Malcolm was still rock hard when he got home, and he took no chances. Two months of nut came busting out as the hours passed, and every time he finished, he found himself wanting to see Cookie less and less. By around two in the morning, Malcolm got ready for bed. He never thought he'd be happy to get stood up, but he was thankful for it this time.

The knock on Malcolm's door came at about a quarter to four. Soft, at first. _Dear God, no. Please don't be at my door._ Just as Malcolm convinced himself that he was dreaming, it started up again. _Do not answer that door,_ Malcolm thought, because he knew that if he did, it would be all over. And the minute Malcolm laid eyes upon Cookie, her eyes swollen and bloodshot, it was.

"Do you still love me, Malcolm?" Cookie asked.

At no time in Malcolm's life did he ever tell Cookie that he loved her. "You think just because we made out in a church that I love you?"

That mean side of him was coming out, and Cookie couldn't take it. "Just answer the question."

"Why are you doing this, Cookie?" Malcolm asked wearily, not yet resigned to the inevitable. He was tired and he was irritated. He was also getting hard again. "Do you want to destroy Anika _this_ badly?"

"This isn't about Anika, Malcolm."

"It's _always_ about Anika, Cookie!" Malcolm fired back. "That's my _wife_. She is the one I'm in love with. She is the one I'm going to spend the rest of life with, _not you!_ And I don't do anything without her at the back of my mind. You got that?"

Malcolm had said this with so much authority and passion that Cookie might have believed him if she didn't know any better. "Just answer the question."

Malcolm looked up at the ceiling. "Goddamn it, Cookie, go home. Just _go home_. Forget this ever happened-"

 _"_ Malcolm _, please! "_ Tears welled up in Cookie's eyes. "Just tell me, please. _Do you still love me?"_

Malcolm closed his eyes. He was too tired and defeated to argue. "Yes..."

Cookie nodded slowly, as if that confirmed whatever it was she was wanting to confirm. "When first I met Lucious, it was summertime...and I was at music camp...and I was pregnant." She lowered her eyes, unable to look at Malcolm anymore. "Please let me in."

 _"What?"_ Like everybody else, Malcolm knew the Story like the back of his hand. Street corner, dancing, spitting rhymes in the wintertime - that was the Story. A six-pound, four-ounce _premature_ baby boy. That was the Story. If even one part of what Cookie had just told Malcolm was true, the timeline of the Story was thrown off. And if everything Cookie just told Malcolm was true - and Malcolm knew that Cookie was telling the truth - then that meant...

Sitting on the couch, Cookie stared into space until she could pull her thoughts together. "Me and Lucious never went all the way at camp. I think I broke his heart when I told him I was pregnant. But he still chose to marry me and give my baby his last name." Cookie gave Malcolm a moment to digest the truth about Andre's linage before she went on. "When Lucious dies, every journalist on the planet is going to write about what a genius he was, and what all he gave to music, and how he passed it all down to his three sons...and they're all going to come with _the Story._ The story of a boy and a girl and a dance contest and a love that was eternal from the moment we met..." Cookie begin to pull her hair so tightly that her eyes stretched back. "I..I can't take that right now. I just can't...please, Malcolm, I just...just for tonight. Please, if you still love me, just let me have tonight."

There was a difference between having love for somebody, as Malcolm did for Cookie, and being in love with somebody, as Malcolm was with Anika. Malcolm wanted Anika, not Cookie. He _needed_ Anika, not Cookie. But Anika was as available to him as Lucious was to Cookie, and both of those things were Malcolm's fault. And Malcolm was so damned sorry for what he had done to destroy everybody's life - his own, Cookie's, Anika's and especially Lucious's. If carrying a burden like betrayal on his back could atone for what he'd done to Cookie, if Malcolm could just ease her pain, even for a little while...

Malcolm took Cookie's hands in his, then moved down to her blouse. Cookie closed her eyes and let her tears fall back as Malcolm unbuttoned the silk clothing and pushed it off her shoulders. His rosary, which Malcolm left at the chapel, was now around Cookie's neck, with the crucifix nestled between her breasts. Cookie pulled her hair over one shoulder as Malcolm carefully removed the rosary from around her neck, and that made her look more vulnerable than ever. The sacred and the profane was sitting right in Malcolm's living room.

 _Take these cookies. Take 'em. I won't tell._

Without words, Malcolm took Cookie from the couch to the floor, placing his body on top of hers. "Thank you, Malcolm," Cookie whispered as Malcolm kissed her tears away before he began to plant kisses down her neck, between her breasts and down to her navel. "Oh, God. _Thank_ you _."_

TBC


	7. Go Home

Reference: _"Not like this, Cookie,"_ [Malcolm] said firmly. - From **Déjà Vu**

* * *

Standing in front of a decorative mirror, bare-breasted and red-eyed while Malcolm went to get a condom, Cookie could see how out of place she was in the DeVeaux home. Unlike Lucious and Cookie, who had become one person before either of them were old enough to vote or smoke, the photos on the walls of Malcolm and Anika's house told the stories of two people who had lived full lives before ever meeting each other. Anika in Girl Scouts, Malcolm in Little League, college graduations, Malcolm with his fellow SEALs, Anika with her sorority sisters, and so on. They even had those corny frames with every school picture from kindergarten leading up to their senior years in high school, complete with caps and gowns.

Yet anyone who didn't know Anika wouldn't have ever known about her life as an A&R, because there were virtually no pictures of Anika during her Empire years. Cookie's presence had wiped out Anika's entire career. Now there were no traces of it. She'd done that, Cookie had...

Cookie picked up a silver double framed picture that sat apart from all the others. On the left was a photo of Malcolm in his full navy uniform and Anika in a lovely champagne-colored dress. They made for a couple so picture-perfect that it was impossible to place Lucious's Anika to this respectable young woman next to the handsome sailor. On the right was a beach picture, obviously from their wedding day. Anika in a blue dress and flowers in her hair, looking up at Malcolm, happier and more radiant than Cookie ever remembered.

And Malcolm, her beautiful Malcolm...no, that wasn't quite right. Not _her_ Malcolm. Malcolm had never looked at Cookie the way he was looking at Anika in their pictures. What Cookie and Malcolm had together in the Berkshires was a drop in the bucket compared what Malcolm and Anika were sharing in that photo. Radiant and loving, free from drama and baggage. Malcolm was in love with a woman that he knew was his and his alone.

And the pin on Anika's dress...Cookie knew that pin. It was Malcolm's SEAL trident, the one he kept pinned inside his wallet. His most prized possession, he'd told Cookie once, only now it was Anika's pin because now the most precious thing to Malcolm was Anika. Absentmindedly, Cookie reached into her purse, pulled out her wallet and smiled as she flipped to her own wedding picture. Lucious with that godawful white tuxedo and Cookie decked out in her modified Confirmation dress, thanks to Miss Bertha. It was the only bridelike dress she had to wear.

Cookie's eyes traveled back up the wall again, back to a picture of Malcolm as a baby, riding on a carousel in the shape of a train. Tears brimmed up in Cookie's eyes as she thought back to her 16th birthday, when Lucious has presented her with a beautiful leather-bound book of trains because he remembered that Cookie said she wanted to be an engineer. He looked so anxious that Cookie never corrected Lucious or clarified that the kind of engineer she wanted to be had nothing to do with trains. For years afterward, Cookie would read to her sons from that book, and as they got older, they would all curl up together, read about the trains and make up stories about where the trains were going and where they'd been. Even now, Andre's hobby was model trains, and little Andrea's nursery reflected that.

 _I have to go home._

Cookie was here to sleep with another woman's husband – Anika's husband, the husband of a woman she hated. But why? Hadn't she wanted Malcolm to be happy? The woman in the picture – whether she was the same woman or a different woman or a reborn woman, whatever – was the one who put the light in Malcolm's eyes. Who was Cookie to say that Anika wasn't good enough for him, while she was there to have sex with a married man while her own husband lay dying?

 _I have to go home._

Cookie's hands shook as she buttoned up her shirt, remembering back to another time she'd tried to lean on Malcolm for strength, the night he had shot Reg to death, Malcolm drove Cookie home that night and stayed with her so she could get some rest. Cookie had literally begged Malcolm to have sex with her, but he turned her down. _"Not like this, Cookie,"_ he'd said firmly, though he later admitted that it hadn't been easy. _"It wouldn't be right."_ Without saying it, Malcolm had forced Cookie to pull herself together, with minimal help from him. She had made it through on her own. She would have to do it again. Or maybe she wouldn't. But what she was asking Malcolm to do – to sacrifice his marriage in order to build her back up – made Cookie the most despicable person alive.

"Going home, Mrs. Lyon?"

Cookie's eyes met Malcolm's in the mirror. He was leaning against a hallway wall. Instead of a condom – which it took Malcolm a minute to realize that he didn't even have in his house because he was a married man - Malcolm was holding his cell phone. "I called you a cab."

"A cab...?"

Malcolm nodded. "Cookie, I love you. I always will. And I wish to God that I could take all of this back. Ask me to do anything for you, Cookie, and I will...but you can't have Anika. I won't let you have her."

Cookie was in Malcolm's arms before he even finished talking. The goodness in Malcolm wasn't dead. Cookie hadn't destroyed him. They weren't going to go through with this. Not only was Malcolm looking out for his wife, he was looking out for Lucious's wife as well. "Shhh, shhh," Malcolm soothed. "Everything is going to be okay, Cookie. You just need to get some rest. We both do." Malcolm laughed dryly. "We're making some pretty terrible life decisions right now, aren't we?"

"Yeah. We are." Cookie stepped back and wiped her eyes. "Speaking of terrible decisions...Malcolm, _why_ did you marry Anika?"

Malcolm laughed. He wasn't angry about Cookie's quips anymore, not really. "You really think I made a terrible decision, huh?"

"It's not that. It's just that every time I think I'm okay with it...Malcolm, sometimes I hate you so much, and there are other times that I love you. I do, Malcolm," Cookie admitted out loud for the first time in her life. "You thawed me out, let me know that it was okay to love again, and I'll always love you for that."

"I didn't mean it was okay for you to love Lucious again." Malcolm winked at Cookie. "But I remember something that I read in high school: _'the heart has reasons that reason does not understand.'_ Maybe that's the problem, Cookie. You keep trying to figure out why you love Lucious." Malcolm handed Cookie a warm mug of tea while she waited for her cab. "My advice? Stop trying. You and Lucious have a love that makes no sense whatsoever. But you two don't owe anybody an explanation. So roll with it."

"Over 30 years of loving that man and that's the nicest thing anyone has ever said to me about marrying Lucious," Cookie said grimly. "And that is so goddamned sad." Cookie sipped her tea. "You're in love with Anika."

"Yeah. I am." Malcolm couldn't even say it without grinning like an idiot, and that made Cookie smile. "Then why isn't she here, Malcolm?" Cookie asked. "Why am I here with you right now, and not your wife?"

Malcolm's eyes went to his tea. "I just had some stuff on my mind, that's all."

"For two weeks?" Cookie frowned. "You've been by yourself for two weeks?"

"No." Malcolm grinned, embarrassed. "Master Chief Sharp was with me."

"You're talking about that white lady that was beating you up?" Malcolm smiled and nodded. "I thought you didn't like her?"

"I like her fine," Malcolm said. "I'll probably never forgive her for being my grandfather's mistress, but if I was in a foxhole, she's one of the few people I'd want by my side."

"Okay, that's all well and good, but this isn't a war," Cookie admonished. "You can't treat your marriage like the navy. You want to be a husband so bad, then be a husband. You're about to be a father. I...I had a miscarriage, you know." Malcolm did know – Lucious had told him – but he said nothing. "How would you feel if something happened to Anika and you weren't there? Pregnancy isn't guaranteed. Just because Anika's having a baby doesn't mean that she's going to have a baby. You feel me?"

Malcolm thought about his wife hurting, or worse, and him not being by her side. And for what? "I feel you," he said slowly.

"You need to call your wife, Malcolm," Cookie admonished gently. "This thing you're going through - whatever it is - it's one of those 'better-or-worse' things that's in your vows. Take it from somebody who lost 17 years, Malcolm. You don't want to lose another day with Anika. Call her. Tell her to come home. And...when you see her, Malcolm, tell her I'm sorry. For all of this. The fight, solitary, all of it."

"Even this?" Malcolm asked, gesturing around the room.

Cookie sighed. "Even this, if you plan on telling her I was here."

"Why don't you tell her yourself?" Malcolm said. "I'd have a hell of a time explaining when I saw you last to give this apology in the first place."

"I have to bury my husband," Cookie said tersely. This little tea party break from reality had been nice, but come tomorrow, it was back to the real.

"That's still no reason not to," Malcolm said firmly. "I'd say my wife has earned an apology from you. Don't you think?"

Cookie thought it over, long and hard. "I'll keep that in mind," she finally said.

Malcolm's phone buzzed, and he checked his text messages. "Your cab is here," he informed Cookie. "I'll walk you out."

"Okay." Together, Malcolm and Cookie walked out to the cab that was waiting to take Cookie back to her apartment. "Here." Malcolm handed Cookie two peach pills, both cut in half. "This is Ambien. It's going to help you sleep. Listen to me, Cookie. Do _not_ take more than half a pill at a time. You'll be walking into walls. It'll...it'll get you to Monday." The day Lucious would be taken off life support, barring some miracle.

Cookie nodded mutely and Malcolm helped her into the cab. "Malcolm," Cookie whispered before he closed the door. "About what I said...about Andre. About when I met Lucious-"

"Was it warm?" Malcolm interrupted softly. "Or was it cold?"

If Lucious knew that she'd told their deepest secret, especially to Malcolm..."It was _colllllld_ ," Cookie said, a soft smile spreading across her face.

Malcolm nodded. "So I heard."

Tears welled up in Cookie's eyes. What a wonderful man Malcolm was. What a blessing for a woman like Anika, who needed a man like Malcolm. "Thank you, Malcolm," Cookie said gratefully.

"Take care, Cookie. I'm praying for you. For both of you." Malcolm closed Cookie's cab door and watched it as it drove away, not going back into his apartment until he no longer saw the car's lights. He didn't dare hug or kiss her goodbye. He was too afraid of what would have happened if he did.

* * *

Cookie was blessed enough to fall into a medicated haze, but Malcolm wasn't nearly so lucky. Even after taking two of the sleeping pills, Malcolm couldn't sleep. It wasn't for a lack of trying. Time after time, Malcolm would drift into a restless sleep. Over and over, he found himself making passionate love to Anika, kissing and licking and pounding into her in every position possible. He could feel his wife's nails digging into his back, feel her teeth nipping his ear as she moaned his name over and over. And every time he was about to come – _every fucking time_ – he would see Cookie's face before he was through.

 _No more Ambien,_ Malcolm thought when he woke up yet again, running straight into a wall as he stumbled for the toilet. He was going to have to find another way to fall asleep, and it was going to have to be tonight. For now, Malcolm was determined to get up and have a productive weekend. The kitchen was a pigsty, dirty clothes were practically up to his chest, and the last homecooked meal had been whatever Master Chief Sharp had cooked him before she left him. She, like Cookie, begged Malcolm to call Anika and tell her he'd been let out of jail.

Malcolm threw on some Bootsy Collins and got into a cleaning mood. As the day went on and Malcolm's mind cleared, the house began to smell of fresh linen and newly waxed floors. He checked to see if there were Fritos and cheese in the house. It was a yes on both, so Malcolm start making some chili for some Frito pie, which was the extent of Malcolm's cooking skills.

Malcolm was so deep in thought that he didn't hear the front door unlock, didn't hear the melodic humming of the woman coming through the front door. "Malcolm?" a shocked voice said behind him.

 _Cookie?_ Malcolm turned around, his heart pounding. That couldn't be...God, please don't be...nope, it wasn't. _"Anika?"_

"Malcolm?" Anika dropped her bag. _"Malcolm!"_ she cried.

 _"Anika!"_ Every dark thought in Malcolm's head dissipated. "Oh, my God! You're home!" Was Malcolm dreaming? If so, he prayed to never wake up. There was laughing and hugging and kiss after kiss after kiss after Anika fell into Malcolm's arms. "What are you doing..."

"...did you get out..."

"...called me and told me..."

"...seen a doctor? Are you okay?"

"Oh, my God! I can't believe you're out!"

"God, Anika. Oh, God, I missed..." A sobering thought came to Malcolm. Had Cookie stayed over – even to get some rest and nothing more - Anika would've walked in on them together. Even if nothing had happened between them, it wouldn't have mattered. His marriage would've been ruined. And Anika? Could Anika even handle losing yet another man to Cookie Lyon? "I missed you so much," Malcolm said to his wife. No truer words had been spoken by any man alive, ever. "What are you doing back here in the States?"

"LaGuardia called." Anika went for her luggage, but Malcolm waved her off and picked up both bags. "The choral instructor is getting married and she's leaving New York...apparently there's been enough time between Lucious's accident and now for them to offer me my old job back. I have to go interview with them first thing Monday. I would've told you, but I had no idea where you were. You've been here? When did you get out of Rikers? Yesterday?"

 _Uh-oh._ Malcolm couldn't lie to her, especially not about this. Even if he got away with it, Mary would certainly tell Anika the truth. "I...I got out two weeks ago," he confessed.

 _"Two...weeks...ago?"_ Anika's mind could barely comprehend the words. "You mean to tell me that I've been sitting around in Cayman for two weeks when we could've been together? Why didn't you call me, Malcolm?"

"I just had to get some thoughts together-"

"By yourself? For half a month?" Anika couldn't believe what she was hearing. "When were you going to call me, Malcolm? This week? Next month? After the baby was born?"

"Anika, there are some things that you can't understand-"

 _"How do you know that!?"_ Anika screamed. "How do you know? You don't know what I can and can't understand because you won't talk to me! You've been here by yourself for two weeks - why!?"

"I wasn't by myself," Malcolm corrected. "I had my grandmother with me."

 _"Mary?_ Why?"

"Because I didn't need someone over my shoulder who was going to clock my every shit, that's why."

"Hey!" Anika warned. "You don't talk to me like that!"

"I'm sorry, Anika. I'm just trying to get you to understand. It wasn't personal," he explained as Anika stalked away from him, into the kitchen. "I just needed to...to debrief. It was like when I came home from Afghanistan. You'd have to be a soldier to understand. You come home, and you don't want to really see or talk to anybody-"

"This isn't the military, Malcolm!" Anika cried. "I'm not your commanding officer, Malcolm! I'm your wife! I'm the mother of your baby! And what the hell are you smiling about?"

"You sound like Mary." _And like Cookie,_ Malcolm added silently. "Trust me, she beat me up something terrible for not calling you. She even threatened to call you herself."

"And when was that?"

"Um...last week."

"Last week," Anika repeated. She jerked open the slow cooker to stir Malcolm's chili. "You son of a bitch, I cannot believe this is-"

"I can't get hard," Malcolm blurted. How Malcolm longed to keep his secret to himself, but the rage in Anika's eyes told Malcolm that he'd better start talking. Fast. "I can't..." He sighed heavily. "I can't hold an erection. I can't get hard," he confessed. Nagging at the back of his mind was how hard he was when Cookie's legs were around his waist, but Malcolm opted not to tell his wife about that. "That's why I didn't call you when I got out. I've been waiting and waiting for something to happen..."

Anika listened to Malcolm's rambling with an annoyed look on her face. "And?" she prompted when Malcolm said nothing more.

"What do you mean, 'and?'"

"What, you're telling me that's the reason why you didn't get in contact with me? Because you can't get hard?"

"It's not that simple, Anika! How was I supposed to face you when I can't even be a man to you?"

"You are a man to me, Malcolm!" Anika fired back. "I didn't marry you because of your dick!"

Malcolm raised an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Okay." Anika smiled in spite of everything. "Maybe that was a _small_ part. But it's a very small part." Anika took Malcolm's hands and guided her to the couch, the very couch where he'd undressed Cookie not even 24 hours ago. "Malcolm, I married you for your heart. Your company, your love...none of that has anything to do with sex. And what's what I need from you right now. What your baby needs from you right now. Your love, your support, your friendship..." Anika shook her head, still disbelieving. "Malcolm, do you have any idea how much I've missed you?"

Malcolm felt worse and worse by the minute. He'd been so busy thinking about his own feelings that he never once considered how Anika might have felt. _Dear Anika...dear Anika...dear Anika..._ It all came rushing back. The time spent at MDC, the sudden news that he was being moved to Rikers, The scream of pure pain mixed with sweet relief when Malcolm jammed the shiv through that poor kid's leg. _Dear Anika...dear Anika...dear Anika..._ The stench of blood and pus on his hands when he was thrown into the hole. One day gone. Two. Three? No sun, no dark, no way to determine night from day. The roaches. The floating dots. So close to going crazy, and only one thing kept Malcolm going. _Dear Anika...dear Anika...dear Anika..._

And here she was, his dear Anika, stroking his back, rubbing his neck, wiping his face while Malcolm curled over on his side, his face pressed against his wife's swollen abdomen. The last time Malcolm cried this hard was when his mother died, and even that had been in private. Malcolm always had to be the strong one. The stoic one. Now his heart was breaking – for Cookie, for Anika, for Lucious, even for their baby.

"Malcolm." Without words, Anika sat up and unbuttoned the top of her sundress. She stood and removed it, leaving her completely naked. "Oh, my God," Malcolm mumbled. Over two months without his wife had given Anika a new, unfamiliar body to Malcolm's eyes. The swollen breasts and thickened hips, the pushed-out belly housing a child. _His_ child. His child inside of his wife. And after a couple of false starts, a hot bath, a full body massage and a good night's sleep, Malcolm was inside of his wife - rock hard and needing, at long last.

And when it was all over, Malcolm was crying all over again because goddamn it, it just wasn't right for Malcolm to be so blessed with such love when Cookie would be losing hers tomorrow morning. They'd both been loyal at the last second, and here was Malcolm being blessed with Anika's love. Maybe - just maybe, despite all odds - the Lord would see fit to bless Cookie, too. Every time Malcolm's mind was still, he prayed that Cookie's loyalty would be rewarded, just as Malcolm's had been.

* * *

While Malcolm celebrated life with his spouse, Cookie prepared for death with hers.

Cookie had disregarded Malcolm's instructions to only take half the Ambien pills. She took a full one the night she returned from Malcolm's and slept all the way to Sunday morning. Cookie didn't even remember how she got to the hospital. Alone, Cookie washed and groomed Lucious's face and body for what she knew would be the last time. She'd done it so many times before now, but her hands were shaking, and Cookie kept blinking her eyes to keep the tears from falling. If she cried now, Cookie knew she would cry forever. There was just too much to do.

The night before Lucious was to be removed from life support, Cookie took the second Ambien pill and sat in the large plush chair next to Lucious, his skeletal hand in hers. By now, Lucious gotten too gaunt and frail for Cookie to curl up with him in bed anymore. His body reeked of the smell of death. His handsome face was sunken in, his lips stretched over his teeth like plastic wrap. Lucious's once-vibrant eyes - sometimes warm, sometimes deadly, always _intense_ \- were milky and unmoving. He sported a constant state of dishevelment because the nurses had to constantly move his body to prevent bedsores. Nothing like the neat and dapper man he'd always been in life. Lucious looked like - he was - a man who was dying.

Andre and Rhonda woke Cookie up the next morning, giving her time to freshen up as best she could. The couple placed a picture of Andrea in Lucious's hands. Jamal showed up shortly after, and the family quietly waited and prayed and talked amongst themselves until Hakeem stumbled into the room over an hour late, completely wasted. Cookie was still high on two days' worth of Ambien, so she let it go.

Andre, Hakeem, Rhonda and Jamal all said their individual goodbyes to the patriarch of their family. Jamal performed a song that brought his family to tears - except for Cookie, who was still too numb and too high on Ambien to feel much of anything - and everybody shared memories of Lucious. The last two years had been wonderful for their family. The Lyons had been blessed with happy memories of Lucious as a husband, a father and a grandfather up until the day he died. No matter what, the Lord had blessed them with Cookie and Lucious's second marriage, even if it had been painfully short.

Finally, it was time to let Lucious go. One by one, the machines that had prolonged Lucious's life for nearly three months were turned off by the medical staff. Cookie was so accustomed to the beeping and the humming of the machines that the room now seemed as silent as a tomb in comparison. With Cookie holding Lucious's right hand and Andre holding Lucious's left, the Lyons quietly waited for the king of their pride to take his last breath as his heart beat on.

And on.

And on.

And _on._

Lucious would not be dead by the end of the hour, as they originally thought. As time passed - first minutes, then hours, then days - the truth became agonizingly clear: Lucious's heart was every bit as strong as it had always been, even when his other vital organs began to fail as the days passed. There was no telling when he (if?) Lucious would die, just that it was going to take a while.

At the end of the fourth day, the Lyons were presented with the unthinkable option of having Lucious moved from the hospital to die at home. "Yes," said Jamal and Hakeem, as if they had a say in the matter. "No," said Andre, as if he had a say in the matter, either. By then, Cookie had opened Lucious's stash of his most expensive wines and other liquors, and she was too drunk to function. She handed the reins over to Andre, who was not one for democracy. "He stays," he said hoarsely. "Dad dies here. I can't go through this again." Now Cookie could add deep resentment of her oldest son on top of the agony of Lucious's neverending death.

Drunk or not, however, Cookie was determined that her husband would not die alone. Every day, Cookie was in Lucious's room the moment visiting hours began. For up to 12 hours a day, Cookie stayed by her husband's side, even when her sons pleaded for her to go home and rest. She talked to him and played his music and read get-well cards, emails and Tweets. She told him stories of the old days and went over pictures. She took her meals in the hospital cafeteria, then raced back to Lucious's room. She took little catnaps by his side. "I'll see you tomorrow," she promised Lucious every night, so he would know that she was coming back. Lucious would not die alone. Cookie was determined of that.

At home, Cookie drove herself crazy reading about miracle stories. This was what was happening, wasn't it? A miracle? Five days...six days...seven days and he still lived on. If he suddenly opened his eyes and started talking, would anybody really be surprised? Perhaps every single person in the medical field, but not Cookie. _My husband is Lucious Lyon._

Cookie also took the time to read the well-wishes on social media. Only now did Cookie understand the kind of fears Anika was facing. "What the hell...?" Cookie couldn't believe the things she was reading. Since when did the Lyon family ever encourage vigilante justice? Here were people bragging about the things they'd done to torture Anika and Malcolm. Pictures of dead animals. Slashed tires. Broken windows. Addresses and phone numbers, many of them wrong. So many people being harassed and even physically attacked, all in the name of justice for Lucious Lyon. How was this justice, when the Lyons had never asked for any of this?

"Good evening, Mrs. Lyon," said a kind, accented voice on the ninth day of Lucious's pending death. Cookie was eating a salad and typing in Microsoft Word. For three days, she'd been trying to craft a message on behalf of the Lyon family to plead with their fans to stop harassing Anika and Malcolm, but she kept coming up blank. "How are things with your husband, Lucious?"

"Good evening, Father Bankole," Cookie greeted. This kindly Nigerian priest was nothing like the stony-faced clergy that had tortured the students at the Franciscans day in and day out. She'd seen and spoken with him over the months in the chapel. Now she thought of her last day in there - that day with Malcolm - and tried not to slide through the floor. "The same." The priest nodded. "Father, I don't understand. He's been off life support for over a week. Is...is this some kind of miracle, Father? Lucious...is he going to make it? He's a Lyon," Cookie said, as if talking to herself. "If anybody can make it..." _My husband is Lucious Lyon._

"Even Lyons die, Cookie," Father Bankole said kindly.

"I know." Cookie dropped her head. She knew there was no miracle coming. What she didn't know was why Lucious was still alive. "Why is this happening, Father? I know - I know. My husband wasn't always a good man. But he's suffered, Father! Our family has suffered! And he's done so much to make up for it." Cookie began to cry. Every time she thought she'd cried every tear in her body, a fresh supply came. "Lucious _can't_ die, Father! There's so much more to do..."

"And you will continue to honor your husband's memory once he is gone," Father Bankole finished. He'd been a hospital priest too long to let Cookie torture herself with ideas of medical miracles. "Mrs. Lyon, might I offer another perceptive?"

"Of course, Father." Cookie dried her eyes. "What is it?"

"Mrs. Lyon, every day, you come and sit by your husband's side, don't you?"

"Yes, Father. Of course I do. And call me Cookie, please."

"Okay, Cookie. Every night, you tell your husband that you love him and you will come back the next day, yes?"

"Yes, Father." What was this old man getting at, asking Cookie these kinds of private questions?

"I am not God, of course, nor am I a doctor. And I've never been married. I certainly have never experienced the kind of love you have, so you'll forgive me if I'm wrong-"

"Father, please," Cookie interrupted. "Just saying."

"Okay, I will." Father Bankole thought his words over before saying them as gently as he could. "Mrs. Lyon, it seems to me as if your husband Lucious is waiting on you to let him die."

 _"Let him die?"_ Cookie gasped. No one had ever said anything so cruel to Cookie in her life. "What the fuck are you talking about? I was the one who decided to take him off life support! How dare you say that shit to me!" Father Bankole moved towards Cookie, and Cookie slapped her salad in the priest's lap. "You sonuvabitch!" she screamed. "What you do you know about our kind of love!? You don't know _shit_ about what me and Lucious got! All you know about love is from God and little boys!"

Cookie ran from the cafeteria, crying all the way to the chapel. She knelt at the altar and crossed herself, trying to think of the many prayers she'd learned as a child. No appropriate ones came to mind. The last time she'd been here, Malcolm's hands were roaming up and down Cookie's body as she eagerly returned his kisses. Was this why God had abandoned her?

Then Father Bankole was helping Cookie to her feet and into a pew. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry," she wept. "Please, Father, forgive me. I didn't mean what I said. I know you would never do that..."

Father Bankole smiled. "Sweet child, I have experienced far worse than a little salad dressing and harsh words. Now sit still, breathe deeply. Let's pray together, and then we'll talk."

What was meant to be a heavenly pep talk turned into a deep, long discussion about love and faith. "Father," Cookie said when it was all over. "I wish to make Confession." That took nearly another hour, since Cookie had about 30 years of sins to confess - the drugs she pumped through her community, the money they stole, the lives they took. But the priest listened, and then he stunned Cookie by bestowing absolution.

"No penance?" Cookie asked, stunned. She might not have been a practicing Catholic in over three decades, but she remembered pretty clearly that there could be no absolving Cookie of her sins without a proper penance.

"I believe it is safe to say that what you are experiencing now is penance enough, Cookie," Father Bankole answered. "You have suffered far more than any penance that I could give you. Go in peace, Mrs. Lyon. I've given you a lot to think about, I know."

"Yes, Father. You did. Thank you."

As Cookie drove home, she knew what she was going to do first and foremost: take a hot bath. Then she was going to get a good night's sleep - no alcohol, no Ambien, nothing. In the morning, Cookie would wake up, eat breakfast, and go say goodbye to Lucious - for real this time, with her mind clear and her thoughts in order. Father Bankole may have never had a love like Cookie and Lucious's - and thank God for that, for Cookie wouldn't wish their love on anybody - but the old man was right. No matter what Cookie said or even what she thought she meant, Lucious would live until Cookie set him free. And it was time to set Lucious free. In fact, it was long overdue.

* * *

Sometimes his eyes were open, sometimes closed. Sometimes, Lucious had violent seizures that only heavy doses of morphine could stop. Today, thank God, Lucious's eyes were closed, and his body was still. Today, he looked peaceful. Today, a staggering 10 days after Lucious had been removed from life support, was the day Cookie would finally and truly let Lucious go in her heart.

But there were things to do first. Quietly, Cookie removed the pictures and the cards. Her eyes fluttered over to Lucious's guitar. She thought to leave it there, but what good would it do? She left a note for her sons to take it with them the next time they came. Cookie checked around and made sure that she was leaving nothing in this room. Once she left it, she had no intentions of returning.

Finally Cookie could sit and be still. For a long while, she said nothing. She listened to the raspy, gasping breaths of a man who was just waiting for permission to die. Not from God - who was God in the face of Cookie Lyon? - but from the woman who kept his heart beating. Did it hurt? The nurses assured Cookie that Lucious could feel nothing, but how would they know? It all sounded so painful.

Cookie opened her mouth, but nothing came out. _Do this, Cookie. You have to do this._ Cookie took a few deep breaths, and the foul stench of Lucious's decaying body filled her nose. She could nearly taste death. That was enough to get Cookie talking.

"Lucious." Cookie took Lucious's right hand into both of hers and kissed it. "I thought that I'd said everything to you that I needed to say before you died. But I haven't. Not really. And that's because I guess I never really thought you would die. Even now, I keep thinking that you're going to wake up and smile at me." Cookie smiled. She could smile now, because her thoughts were as clear as her intentions. "And I know that if you did that, you would probably hate me. The doctors say that you'll never walk or talk again, and you always told me that if it came to that, I was to let you go. I want you to forgive me, Lucious, for being so selfish. For keeping you here with me, even now, because I didn't really want you to leave me.

"So...here goes. The things that I need to say to before you go." Cookie took a couple more breaths of sour-smelling air before she continued. "First, I swear to you that I would do anything and everything it took to keep you here with me. I would keep you with me if there was nothing left of you but a single hair on your head. But I know you don't want to live like this. And I know you don't want me to live like this. I know you want me to be with our family. So I'm honoring your wishes, Lucious."

So quiet. So fucking _quiet!_ "I also don't think that I..." Cookie looked around to make sure nobody was in the room or coming to the door. "I don't think I ever thanked you for taking in Andre. You gave my baby your name and you raised him as your blood. You did it because you loved me, I know, but I also know that you loved him. You loved Andre just the same as you loved Jamal and Hakeem.

"I know I never said anything about it because we never discussed it, but I'm saying it now." Cookie's voice cracked, but she pushed on anyway. " _Thank you,_ Lucious. Thank you for loving Andre like he was your blood born son. Thank you for giving my baby a family. Thank you for sacrificing so much - so much that nobody ever knew. Everyone always said that I was the only person who sacrificed and that you never sacrificed anything for me. But you sacrificed _everything_ for me. Your entire future...you gave it up for me and my baby, and nobody could even know. I swear, Lucious, sometimes I think that's the worst thing of all. When these haters and these idiots talk about I'm the only one who gave anything up, when you gave everything up for my baby and me. And I can't even tell them about it...well, I'm acknowledging it. Right here, right now, because I never did."

A strange thing began to happen then. Cookie didn't know if it was a coincidence or if she was dreaming or if she was just seeing things, but she could've sworn that something in Lucious's face began to change, as if he was beginning to relax. The twitching in his face and upper body had stopped, and his face didn't look so angled and pain-filled anymore. Was his spirit starting to leave his body?

"Lucious, no matter what we've been through, I want you to know that I don't regret loving you. Somebody...somebody told me once that the heart has reasons that reason doesn't understand. That's us, Lucious. Our love...nobody is going to understand it, ever. I think that might be because there's a part of it that nobody can ever know, but...I don't know, Lucious. I don't know what the hell we got. What I do know is that I'm done explaining it to people. I'm done trying to make sense of it. I just thank God that we had it, Lucious. I will always be Mrs. Lucious Lyon, and _I thank God for that."_

"And I thank God that we got it right by the end, because we _did_ get it right. The night you died, we were together. Me, you, our sons, our grandbaby...we were together, celebrating like a family. And that's what we're going to do now that you're gone, Lucious." Cookie's voice grew stronger. "We're not going to keep explaining and making excuses for who we are. We're going to celebrate who we are. Our legacy. Your legacy. We are Lyons. As long as the world is spinning, _we...will...roar."_

She was shaking, so Cookie took a few breaths to calm herself back down. Lucious's breathing was becoming louder and more ragged. Was he hanging on to hear the rest of what Cookie had to say? "I guess that's it, Lucious. I've said everything to you a hundred times - how much I love you and I'll miss you, how glad I am to have known you. How blessed I was to love you and raise three sons with you. So...I'm going to go now, Lucious.. It's time for me to go." Unlike all the other days, Cookie didn't tell Lucious that she would return. She knew she would never come back to this room. She only prayed that Lucious knew it, too.

Cookie had to hold her breath in order to kiss him, nearly recoiling at the stench of his rancid breath, each one more ragged and raspy than the last. "Go home, Lucious. Go home to God. We'll see each other again." God had to take Lucious home. God had to know Lucious's heart, didn't He? There could be no heaven without Lucious Lyon in it – and if there wasn't, then Cookie didn't want to be there, either.

Cookie kissed Lucious's temple one last time. "Goodbye, Lucious." she whispered. Then Cookie walked out of the door and never looked back.

* * *

Now that she'd said goodbye to Lucious - truly said goodbye to him - the first thing Cookie needed to do was sit down with her sons and explain to them that they needed to say a real goodbye to their father. If they truly wanted to let Lucious go, they would have to let Lucious go, just as she'd done.

Then again, would it really matter? Lucious's heart wasn't still beating for Hakeem. He wasn't hanging on to life for Jamal's sake. He wasn't still alive nine days later because of Andre. It was a horrible thing, but the truth was that their presence probably wouldn't matter one way or another. And maybe his sons _should_ be there. That way, Lucious wouldn't die alone. No, it was probably best not to bring it up at all.

"Mrs. Lyon?" somebody called out as Cookie existed Lucious's room for the last time. "There's mail here for you. Same procedure as always?"

"Yes." Over and over, the Lyon family told Lucious's fans to sign up for organ donation in lieu of fan mail. They still sent cards and flowers and teddy bears and music - so much music that nobody bothered to listen to. The staff had permission to open up all the mail. They could keep any cash and gift cards that were sent. The flowers and teddy bears were to be donated. The rest could go in the trash. "And from now on, refuse to accept any mail in our name."

"Yes, Mrs. Lyon."

Cookie's daily walk to the vending machine was always at night, after visiting hours. This morning, everything seemed so harsh and loud and bright, and it felt like a walk to the electric chair. Cookie's eyes swam at all the choices in front of her, as if they hadn't been the same choices for the past three months. Twix? Reese's? Powdered donuts? Skittles? Cookie's favorite were the wildberry kind, but there were only the regular ones here.

Cookie's hands pushed random buttons. The sound of candy hitting the bottom of the machine made Cookie jump. She didn't even retrieve it. Didn't want to risk bending over and letting fresh tears in her eyes fall. Let some lucky kid have the candy.

Next was the Coke machine. Cookie didn't really drink soft drinks until Lucious died, and certainly not at 9:30 in the morning. She was getting old. Lucious used to guzzle so many Cokes that Cookie teased that he would die of kidney failure. Was that what was killing Lucious right now? Kidney failure, heart failure, dehydration? All of the above?

 **THUNK** _._

Cookie bent over this time and got her soft drink. A Sprite. Lucious thought Sprites were disgusting. _"That's not even real soda. If you're gonna ruin yourself, at least get a real soda."_ So Cookie got a real soda – a Big Red this time. **THUNK**. Those were nice and teeth-rotting. They also turned lips red, which was why she drank them as a little girl. No lipstick allowed in the Holloway home. Before they got married, Lucious always said Cookie's kisses tasted like Big Red and cherry Chapstick. Lately, Cookie had been wearing cherry Chapstick, nothing more.

 _What was I doing? Candy. Right_. _No, wait. I already bought some candy._ Cookie went back over to the candy machine and retrieved her snack. Mike and Ikes? Good Lord. She was desperate for sweets, but she wasn't _that_ desperate. She fed the machine more money, then blindly pressed the buttons again.

 **THUNK**.

Another gift for some other hospital visitor, because Cookie heard the commotion behind her before she could even turn around. She heard the screaming and the crying and the calling of her name: _Mom...Cookie...Mom, Mama...oh, God...! Andre, it's...okay...Dad! DAD!_

The Big Red in Cookie's hand slipped from her fingers and hit the floor, spewing the cold, red liquid around and around like the bright fireworks that Andre loved so much as a boy. Cookie's eyes wandered to the clock above her head. She'd been out of Lucious's room for four minutes.

 _My husband was Lucious Lyon._

Her sons couldn't see Cookie from where they were standing. But Cookie could see them in the reflection of the vending machine glass. She didn't move, for she no desire to be a part of the ever-growing crowd up front. What a selfish family matriarch Cookie was, knowing that she should have been there to give comfort to her family, but choosing to hide instead.

Her family didn't know where she was, but Bibi did. Lucious's head nurse seen Cookie leave Lucious's room and go to the vending machine nearly every evening for three months. So while Cookie's family cried out and wept and wailed, Cookie stood still, her eyes on the small reflection in the glass that got bigger, bigger, bigger until it was standing right next to her, until the warm, friendly hand touched her shoulder.

"Mrs. Lyon?" said the familiar voice behind her, compassionate and professional at the same time. And just like that, the Story of Lucious and Cookie was complete.

TBC


	8. The Best Laid Plans

_Note: There were a couple of additions made from last night's version (5/15) and this afternoon's (5/16). It doesn't change anything in the story. I just added a few extra lines and changed the chapter title to reflect that._

* * *

 _"Ms. Calhoun? There's somebody here to see you."_

Anika hadn't seen Cookie since the day Cookie told Anika that Malcolm had been moved to Rikers. She had no idea why Cookie was looking for her, or even how Cookie knew Anika was back at LaGuardia Arts. "Something I can help you with, Cookie?" she asked, wondering how Cookie knew her away around a school as large as LaGuardia. Then she remembered that Cookie and Lucious had written a huge check to put Anika in her instructor's chair, and Anika's calm began to melt into fury.

Cookie walked into Anika's classroom as if she'd been invited in and looked around. The room didn't reflect Anika all that much just yet. It was still Mrs. Chapman's room until the spring semester. Anika was basically Chapman's aide for three times a week, a way for her to acclimate her back into the classroom. Anika had forgotten how much she missed teaching. Best of all, the time away had helped her students to re-examine the events that had led to Lucious's tragic demise. Now here was Cookie yet again ready to disturb Anika's universe. "Cookie," Anika said sharply when she didn't speak right away. The sooner Cookie left, the better. "What do you want?"

"Right." Anika would never forget how regal Cookie looked that day, how calm she sounded. "Lucious passed away a couple of hours ago, Anika. We're going to make the announcement this afternoon."

Cookie said more - something about Lucious putting up a fight and being taken off life support a while ago - but Anika didn't really hear her. The sad truth was that Anika had forgotten all about Lucious being on life support in the first place. In her mind, Lucious had woken up and the Lyons had gone about their lives. Now here Cookie was telling Anika that Lucious was gone. "He's _dead?_ " Anika blurted, cutting Cookie off.

"That's what I just said. He died at around 8:30 this morning." Cookie took note at the unreadable look on Anika's face. "I'm not here to cause any trouble, Anika. I just didn't want you to hear about it on the news, that's all. I think that I owe you-"

The next thing Anika remembered was being on the floor with Cookie fanning her from above. "I'm sorry," Anika blubbered, trying to pull her thoughts together as she tried to sit up. The more Anika tried to calm herself down, the harder she cried. What a shameful display she was putting on, especially in the face of Lucious's widow. "I'm sorry, Cookie. It's just that-I thought-"

"-that he would pull through," Cookie finished. "I know. Everybody did, especially me." Anika didn't trust her legs to carry her far, so she stumbled to the risers where the choir usually stood to sing. Cookie followed Anika's line of sight to a huge red stain on the bottom of Cookie's pants. "Dropped a Big Red," she explained. "I had it in my hands when the nurse told me Lucious was dead."

 _Dead_. Lucious was dead. Lucious - Cookie's husband and Anika's former fiancee - was dead. It just didn't make any sense. Death was for mortal men, not a man like Lucious. "It's okay," Cookie said again. Cookie sat next to Anika and rubbed her shoulder as Anika cried. "I know you loved him once."

As Anika pulled herself together, a voice came over the loudspeaker yet again. "Ms. Calhoun, your lunch is here. Should we send it to your room?"

"Yes, please." Anika was dizzy and faint. She wanted nothing more than to curl up and cry herself to sleep. "I'll let you go," Cookie said, rising to her feet. "I just wanted you to hear it from me and not read it on the blogs, okay? You...you take care, Anika." Before Cookie could hurry out of the classroom unseen, two students came inside with Anika's lunch. "Hey!" one of them said, his eyes wide. "You're Cookie Lyon!"

"Boys!" Anika snapped. "Out. Out! And do not breathe a word to _anybody_. If I find out that anybody else knows Cookie is here, I'll have you suspended. Do you here me?" she demanded when the students said nothing.

"Yes, ma'am." The students shuffled out the door, but one boy dared to speak up. "Mrs. Lyon? Tell Lucious that we're praying for him, okay? We just know he's going to make it."

Cookie nodded graciously. "I will. And thank you for your prayers."

What would those boys think when Cookie announced that Lucious was already dead? "Have you eaten?" Anika asked as the students left the room. "They always send me way too much food." Anika held a set of plasticware in the air. "You're welcome to join me. It's Italian."

Other than those disgusting Mike and Ikes, Cookie's stomach was empty. "Sure," Cookie said. "I'll have some."

That made Anika nervous. She hadn't actually expected Cookie to say yes. It wasn't that Cookie wasn't welcome to the food - the portions were huge and Anika had no problems with Cookie eating with her. It was just that Lyon family dinners had never gone very well, and Anika didn't expect this sit-down to be any different.

For a while, the women ate in silence. "This is really good," Cookie commented. She didn't realize how hungry she was. She was enjoying her third bread stick, but Anika pecked at her salad and threw Cookie worried glances, as if she was just sure that Cookie had come to make her life miserable yet again. "Did Lucious tell you that Andre wasn't his biological son?" Cookie asked.

" _What?!"_ Anika gasped, nearly choking on a tomato. Was Cookie really saying that the firstborn Lyon son wasn't a Lyon at all? "Andre isn't Lucious's son?"

"Andre isn't Lucious's _biological_ son," Cookie corrected. "You said you knew everything," she added in a slightly accusatory tone.

"I knew that you went to Catholic school and all of that stuff. I had no idea...I never would've guessed."

"You _really_ didn't know, Anika? Why did you think I was so upset that night?"

"I thought it had to do with street cred, Cookie. The Lyon legacy and all of that. And even if I _had_ known, I never would've told anybody that Andre wasn't Lucious's son - his biological son. I swear that on my mother, Cookie. I _never_ would've told."

 _Too bad I didn't know that then,_ Boo Boo Kitty, Cookie almost said, but she didn't. The time of laying blame and making threats was long over. "I was pregnant when I met Lucious at summer camp. We never slept together, so Lucious knew he was raising another man's son. Lucious could've left me and gone on to be a brilliant musician, but he gave up his future to take care of me and my son when he was just 16."

Cookie looked over Anika, who was surprised to see tears in Cookie's eyes. "Everybody always says _'Cookie gave up everything for Lucious, and Lucious didn't give up anything for her.'_ That's not true. Lucious gave up _everything_ for me. And the only person who knows that right now is you." Cookie sighed wearily. "You know what the worst part is about this whole Lucious/Cookie love story? This whole story-with-a-capital-S?"

"No, what?" For some reason, Cookie trusted Anika with these secrets, secrets that Cookie knew Anika would never tell, not even to Malcolm. That was almost an honor. An exhausting honor, but an honor nonetheless.

"I hate how everybody romanticizes me and Lucious's struggle. I hear so many young girls say they want a love like me and Lucious and I feel like screaming. In the beginning, our marriage was _horrible_." Cookie chuckled at the look on Anika's face. "Think about it. You teach kids that were as old and me and Lucious when we got married. Can you imagine any of them married _and_ raising a baby on top of it?"

Anika thought to the couples she'd taught - the ones who were so dramatic in their love, only to break up by third period. "No," she admitted with a laugh. "Half of them couldn't raise a plant together, let alone a baby."

"The Story always talks about how it was love at first sight," said Cookie said between slurps of buttery noodles and broccoli. "But that's not true. Never was. Lucious was in love with me, yeah, but I just liked him. I didn't love him for a long, long time. I can't tell you how many times I thought about leaving. But I knew I could never leave Lucious because..."

"What, because he'd track your little ass down and drag you back?" Anika asked with a laugh.

"Basically. I actually left him right after Andre was born. Took Andre and walked right out the door with the clothes on my back. I think Andre was about four months old then."

The Story always made it sound as if Cookie and Lucious had been inseparable from the very beginning. "What made you up and leave him? Especially so soon?"

"Lucious always felt that I was gonna make Andre into a punk because I was breastfeeding him. That day, it was so cold and I was so hungry and so tired. And I said..." Cookie lowered her eyes, and her voice went soft. "I said that Andre wasn't his baby anyway, so it didn't matter." A tiny smile crept across Cookie's face. "Lucious slapped the shit out of me. Can't say I blame him."

Not even in Lucious's cruelest moments could Anika ever imagine he would've raised a hand to her. " _Lucious... **hit** you?" _

Cookie shrugged. "I'm not trying to excuse him or anything, but it was all he knew. It's all any of us knew. Really," Cookie added at the dubious look on Anika's face. "His father slapped his mother around, and so did the men in the neighborhood...it was normal. Even my dad pushed my mom around from time to time when her mouth got a little too slick. Nobody really thought much about it, especially since the women in the neighborhood were always going upside our men's heads."

Anika knew it was best to skip the discussion about hood love. "So what happened?"

"I took my ass on the train and went all the way back to my side of town so Bunkie could whup Lucious's ass. My Aunt Caroline set me straight, though. She told me that things were different now. I wasn't Lucious's girlfriend anymore. I was his wife, so it wasn't Bunkie's place to get into it-"

"Lucious still didn't have the right to put his hands on you!" Anika said firmly.

"I know, I know. But here's the thing, Anika. If we'd been in school when that happened, Lucious would've gotten detention. _Maybe_ he would've been suspended. He was a child and I was a child and we were acting like children in this very grown-up union. And we didn't have anybody to set us on the right path. You know what my aunt said when I told her Lucious had hit me? She said, _'well, what did you say to make Lucious hit you?'"_

 _"Wow."_ Anika could never imagine such a discussion at her house. Her family was more of a "strike first, ask later" type.

Cookie took a long swallow of iced tea; she'd been talking for quite a while. "When I came home, Lucious was sitting there with a gun to his head. I don't know what would've happened if I'd come home just five minutes later...I don't want to know. Lucious thought I'd left him and gone back to be with Andre's father. He never told me, but that was his biggest fear for as long as we were together - that I would leave him and go back to Andre's real father." Cookie laughed mirthlessly. "The gag is that I don't know who Andre's father is. I couldn't point out Andre's father on the streets if he hit me upside the head."

"What...how...?" Anika didn't know what to say. The Story - the real Story - seemed to get worse and worse with every passing minute.

"When my daddy died, I ran the streets," Cookie explained. "Anybody who gave me attention, I got with. There was this guy...I called him my boyfriend. He was in his 20s. It was probably him."

"He was in his 20s and you were just 14?" Anika asked breathlessly.

"13," Cookie corrected with a wink. "You were right about that, too." That was no consolation to Anika, but at least Cookie had forgiven her for holding that over Cookie's head. "But there was this party one night. A couple of Daylon's boys had gotten out of prison, and. they were having a homecoming party..."

"You don't have to talk about it, Cookie," Anika said when Cookie stopped talking. She wanted Cookie to stop talking. Sidewalk girl that she was, Anika didn't want to hear about the gang rape of a 13-year-old girl - ironic since a similar incident had happened at Anika's very posh boarding school when she was a high school junior. Men took advantage of women and girls all over the world. Sidewalk or street, rich or poor, black or white, there was no escaping that.

"I wish I could tell you that I was drunk or high or that Dee made me do it, but I did it because he asked me to. I never thought about saying no, or asking myself why he would want to share me with other men if he loved me so much..."

A tear rolled down Cookie's cheek. Anika moved to sit next to Cookie, but Cookie held her hand up, as she tended to do when she wanted to compose herself. She might've been in mourning and she might've been reliving her past for the first time in her life, but Cookie was still a tough Philly girl at heart. Just like back then, there was no room for sympathy or coddling, especially now that her husband was dead.

Finally, Cookie was able to go on. "Everybody knew what happened that night. I already had a rep as a ho, but after that, it was 10 times worse. Guys would yell stuff at me in the streets. They would even ask my little sister if she could give it up like I did. So when there was a chance to leave the neighborhood to go to summer camp, I jumped on it. I figured that if there could be some time put between that party and the time I came back, maybe things would be a little better for me.

"I didn't even tell Lucious where I lived, but he found me...damn, he never did tell me how he found me. But just that he found me showed how much he loved me. And I couldn't let Lucious do that - fall in love with me like that. I _had_ to tell him I was pregnant. He knew it wasn't his baby since we never had sex, but he still asked me to marry him anyway. When I said no, he asked my mama." Cookie laughed. "I was so mad at him, Anika, but you know Lucious. What he wanted, he went for."

"Yeah." Anika nodded. "He sure did. Always shot his shot."

"My mama packed up all my shit when Lucious told her I was pregnant. Said as soon as I turned 14, I was getting married. But I ran away, all the way to my sister's campus apartment at Penn. Me and Candace were on the same page - I was going to get an abortion and then I was going to finish school. Then out of nowhere, Candace started talking about me keeping the baby. _'We're Holloway girls. We got this.'_ She pumped my head up so big that I found myself wanting to keep my baby, even though I didn't know who his father was. Maybe that was the Catholic in me.

"What I didn't know is that Lucious was coming by giving Candace money to take care of my baby. and Candace was taking most of it and giving it to my mama because my mama told her to. I didn't even know until Jeanette asked Lucious for $5,000 in a letter and signed my name. Lucious came over to give it to me personally. After I read that letter, I went to my mama, gave her the money and told her that she was coming with us to the courthouse so that she could sign the paperwork to marry me to Lucious."

"Sold you for 40 pieces of silver," Anika said without thinking.

"5,000 pieces of silver, to be exact. Anyway, Mama signed the papers to marry me and the neighborhood ho moved to the south side and became Mrs. Lucious Lyon." Cookie rolled her eyes. "Mind you, I was already about five months along by then. Now, any fool could do the math and figure out that there was no way Lucious coulda got me pregnant at summer camp, not with me being so big. But if Lucious brought his big-ass new wife around and said she was having his baby, you damn well better smile and bring a gift."

Cookie smiled, her first real smile all day. "You should've seen Lucious that day at the hospital when I had Andre. Passing out cigars and everything. He really wanted to raise a family because of the kind of house he came up in. Lucious even picked Andre's name. Named him after a favorite uncle of his. As far as Lucious was concerned, Andre was as good as his. Lucious might not have been Father of the Year, but I can honestly say that he never treated Andre any differently than Jamal or Hakeem.

"That night I left him and came back, we just held each other and cried. We were so _scared_ , Anika. We didn't have anybody to talk to, nobody to lean on, except for each other. And it was that way for years and years. But somehow we still made it, 12 years strong before I went to prison. I can't say that we had a good marriage or a bad marriage because I don't know what a good marriage was supposed to look like. But it was _our_ marriage."

"How do you think you made it through?" So much of what Cookie was saying made sense, and that was a frightening thing. Cookie was right. This was the side of the Story that nobody wanted to hear. They wanted to hear about long nights making love and music and lovely music, not freezing cold nights with terrified teenagers raising a newborn baby.

Cookie thought about it. "We loved each other harder than we fought. And we fought _hard_ , so that's saying something."

"Did Lucious ever hit you again?"

"Oh, no. But it wasn't because anybody threatened him. It was because he saw the look in my eyes, and he knew he never wanted to see that look in my eyes ever again. That's what our marriage was, Anika, in the beginning. Trial and error. More like error and error. So when I hear people talking about young love and all that bullshit, it makes me so _mad_. There's nothing romantic about waking up every few minutes because you're afraid your son has frozen to death, or worrying that your husband might be killed in a drug deal gone bad. I don't wish those first few years of our marriage on _anybody."_

Anika thought Cookie's words over, then Cookie changed the subject. "This thing with Lucious and his accident and all...I've been thinking about this a lot. About my hand in all this. I've asked myself for months now, what would have happened that day that I met you if I'd just said 'hi, I'm Cookie?' I disrespected you from the minute I met you. I had no reason to hate you like I did, but I did."

"Why, Cookie?" Anika had wondered since they day they met. "Why did you hate me so much when you didn't even know me?"

Cookie gave a thin smile. "Because when I came out of prison and saw you, I saw that Lucious was in love with the girl that I could've been. I couldn't forgive that, but I took it out on you. All of the fighting, the shade, the cheating, watching you go crazy, little by little...I take responsibility for all of that. And I'm sorry, Anika. I am." Cookie shook her head, and tears filled her eyes. "I'm sorry for _everything_ I've put you through because you never deserved it in the first place. I really wish I could've known you for the woman you were, not the woman me and Lucious made you. And if I had just treated you right from the beginning, maybe...maybe my husband would still be alive."

"It's nobody's fault, Cookie," Anika soothed. "Or maybe it's everybody's fault. But don't put this all on your shoulders, Cookie. Being a martyr doesn't make things better. Like Shakespeare said: _the best laid plans/of mice and men-_ "

 _"-oft go awry,"_ Cookie finished. "And that's not Shakespeare."

"It's not?"

"No. It's this Scottish writer named Robert Burns." Cookie smirked. "I learned that with my little 8th grade education in prison with my bootleg pencil."

Anika gave a friendly golf clap. "Well played, Mrs. Lyon," she complimented.

"Thank you. Oh, and this stuff online - the Facebook posts and all that - we're gonna take care of that," Cookie assured. "Let these people know that the Lyons don't approve. I should've done that a long time ago." The fourth period bell jarred the women out of their conversation. "I better go," Cookie said, rising to help Anika clean up. "I know I just laid a lot on you. Thank you for listening. This isn't the kind of stuff I can talk to my sisters about. They don't know about Andre. Nobody ever knew until now." Cookie tossed her trash in the nearest trash can. "I trust you know that if you tell anybody, you're a dead woman?"

"As I should be," Anika agreed. "Cookie, any time you need to talk to someone, you call me. Okay? I'll listen."

"I know you will," Cookie said kindly, though they both knew that Cookie had no intentions of calling. "How is your baby? You know what you're having yet?"

"I have a doctor's appointment on Friday," Anika said. "We'll find out then."

"How about I take you to lunch?" Cookie suggested. "Since I ate up most of your food here. We can pick a restaurant and meet each other there once you're finished."

"Sure...that sounds good," Anika said, surprised at Cookie's offer. "Text me. My number is the same. We'll talk poetry. Oh, and..." Anika stuck out her hand. They couldn't change the past, but maybe, for the sake of their families, they could change the future. "I'm Anika," she said. "Anika Calhoun."

Cookie shook Anika's hand, understanding. "I'm Cookie Lyon. _Mrs_. Cookie Lyon," she added with a sad smile."

"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Cookie Lyon."

Mrs. Cookie Lyon nodded and left. There was no goodbye hug, no "I'll talk to you later." They wouldn't go to lunch, Anika knew. In fact, Anika was fairly sure she would never see or hear from Cookie ever again. It seemed to Anika that while Cookie had two sisters, she didn't have any friends. And while Anika wanted Cookie to have friends, Anika wasn't sure if she wanted to be one of them.

* * *

Dr. Brian Cannaday was the man who personally chose Anika to become LaGuardia's student teacher last year, and he was the one who called her to come back to work. "I need to take the afternoon off," she told Dr. Cannaday without any formalities once Cookie left. "Lucious Lyon died this morning. That was his wife who just left. She came and told me herself."

"He died? Just today?" Dr. Cannaday removed his eyeglasses and polished them, then placed them back on his nose. "My goodness, I thought he was already dead."

Anika could've slapped the old man for such casualness. "Technically, he died when he hit his head, but he was taken off life support this morning, I think. Or maybe it was a little while ago. Either way, he died this morning. I'm sure you'll understand why I don't want to be here for the rest of the day."

"Hadn't the two of you been apart for years?" Dr. Cannaday asked. "I can't imagine why you would be so upset."

"Because I used to love him," Anika replied. Dr. Cannaday probably didn't mean to sound so callous, as he was a man who related more to cats than people. "I was engaged to marry this man. Just because I hated him at some point doesn't mean that I'm not affected by his death. And I assumed you'd be a bit more understanding, since the man wrote you a $400,00 check to secure my internship here."

"Excuse me, Ms. Calhoun?" Dr. Cannaday pushed back in his chair and stood. He was only five feet four inches, but he stood as if he was seven feet tall. "Are you trying to insinuate that I was paid off to take you in?"

"Weren't you?" Anika said boldly. "I know that Lucious and Cookie paid you $400,000 before I was selected to be here."

"Ahhhhh, yes. I believe I remember letting the Lyons think they had something to do with you being picked," Dr. Cannaday surmised. "I didn't have the heart to tell them that I'd already selected you for the spot. They seemed so earnest in their effort to help them...how could I turn them down?"

That came as a surprise. "Are you serious, Dr. Cannaday?"

"Oh, yes." Dr. Cannaday came from around his desk and took Anika's hand in his. "You're multilingual. You have a master's degree. You play piano and violin. Why wouldn't we have picked you, Anika?"

"I only had two reference letters," Anika stammered. "I had to have three on file. I know I had to have three."

"And you had three," Dr. Cannaday confirmed. "They're all in your student teaching file here and at your university. Would you like to see them? You're not supposed to, of course, but since your internship is long over, I can't imagine it would be a big deal now."

Anika followed Dr. Cannaday through the gigantic administration office until they got to the record's room. "Let's see..." It took a painfully long time for Dr. Cannaday to pull Anika's file up, as he was a hunt-and-peck type of typer. "Let's see...here's a letter from a Master Chief Mary Sharp, another from a Mr. Dan McCarthy, and a third from Andre Lyon."

 _"Andre!?"_ Anika gasped.

"Yes. Apparently he was the Chief Financial Officer of Empire Enterprises while you were there. He spoke very highly of you." Dr. Cannaday looked confused. "What, you never saw his recommendation letter?" He ran off a copy and handed it to her.

Anika laughed aloud as she read the glowing words. Andre hadn't written this letter at all - Rhonda had. The memo merely sported Andre's signature, and even that might have been forged by Rhonda. _Rhonda_. Of course. "Ain't that a bitch?" Anika said aloud. "And all this time, i thought it was because of the money."

"Maybe you shouldn't believe everything you're told, Anika," Dr. Cannaday suggested. "Let's see...tomorrow is Thursday, and you took off on Friday, correct?"

"Yes. I have an OB-GYN appointment on Friday."

"In that case, just take the rest of the week off and we'll see you on Monday. I know this is going to be a very emotional time for you, and you might not want to be around your students right now. Or maybe they won't want to be around you. Whichever. Just go home if you want to."

"Thank you, Dr. Cannaday." Anika's heart was light as air. So Lucious and Cookie hadn't bought her spot after all! Anika had been selected not just because of her credentials, but because she'd met all of the requirements as well. "Oh, and Anika?"

Anika turned around. "Yes, Dr. Cannaday?"

"Even if your internship had been bought, there was no question that you were going to be hired to the full-time staff. You know why?"

"No, why?"

Dr. Cannaday smiled broadly. "Because you and your husband are the only Americans who know the words to 'Waltzing Matilda.'"

"Oh, no!" Anika cried, her face turning red. During the end-of-year concert back during her internship days, there had been an impromptu singalong of a number of national anthems from countries around the world. Dr. Cannaday - an Australian by birth - began to sing "Waltzing Matilda," the country's unofficial anthem and a song that approximately two people in the entire auditorium knew: Anika, because she'd learned at at Cayman International and Malcolm, whose swim buddy at BUD/s had been born in Australia. Once the students all had the words and could sing the song with little trouble, they all gathered around Anika and Malcolm, laughing and singing as the couple waltzed beautifully in a circle. After that, Malcolm had joked that if they ever had a daughter, they would name her Matilda.

 _"Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda  
You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda with me."  
He sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled  
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me..."_

Anika found herself humming the quirky song all the way home. Her mood died immediately when she found Malcolm watching television on the couch. Malcolm, like Anika, had been offered his old job back. Unlike Anika, however, Malcolm hadn't decided to take it just yet. "You heard?" Malcolm asked, rising to his feet.

Anika nodded. "Cookie came to tell me so I wouldn't have to hear about it on the news."

Malcolm didn't seem surprised. "That was good of her."

"Who made the announcement?"

"Jamal did. I thought it would've been Andre, since he's the oldest."

"Jamal has always been the more outgoing brother," Anika explained. "He's always been the family spokesperson. Andre is more the behind-the-scenes businessman."

Lucious's death was covered on every major news channel, and every music station played his music for hours and hours. There were statements from hundreds of celebrities - musicians, actors, businessmen. As the sun went down, Malcolm. took Anika into his arms. "I know that you might feel weird about grieving for Lucious. I just want you to know that it's okay. I know that you loved him once. You were engaged to marry him...spent many years with him. More with him than with me, even. So don't think I'll be upset or jealous if you do. It's okay."

Anika took Malcolm's hand and led him to the bedroom instead. Grieve for _Lucious?_ She'd done her grieving long before Lucious even hit his head. Their entire relationship was one big tragedy. Lucious's death came as a shock, of course, but Anika felt no need to grieve his passing. In fact, Anika had a horrible thought, one that echoed in her head after she and Malcolm were done making love and he held her in his sleep: if somebody's husband _had_ to die, Anika was grateful that it was Cookie's husband, not hers.

* * *

"Andre. Tell me the Story."

The clothes would have to be packed up. The funeral service would have to be planned. Nobody objected to Cookie's suggestion that her husband's body be cremated. There was barely enough of Lucious to bury, and Cookie didn't want the world to see her husband the way he looked when he died. She wanted them to remember him when he was handsome and strong, his eyes filled with love for the woman he'd dedicated his life to when he was just 16, all the way until his last breath.

While the sons addressed the press, answered the questions and wrote the statements - including the ones that were supposedly written by Cookie - Cookie listened to music, flipped through pictures and read old press clippings. Other than a quick text message to Anika _(CAN U EAT SUSHI SINCE UR PREGGO?),_ there was nothing else to do tonight that couldn't wait until the morning, after Cookie had had time to grieve and sleep.

"Alright." Cookie turned her phone off and set it to the side as Andre leaned back and crossed his leg, just like Lucious just to do. "It was the winter of 1984 and...it was _collllllld_."

Andre gave Cookie a quizzical look when Cookie didn't give the usual response. _No, Andre. It wasn't the winter. It was the summer when I met your father. I was dancing on top of a table. He did everything he could to be by me all summer long. He hustled to get me a single room. We talked and dreamed and touched and made each other feel things that we never felt before._ Still, Cookie smiled weakly and nodded.

As Andre went on, just telling the story without Cookie's traditional comments, Cookie realized that she would have to keep this damned story up until the day she died. They would celebrate Lucious's life for years to come. And every time the world wanted to celebrate Lucious's birthday or the day of his death, somebody was going to have to tell the Story. The burden of keeping their summer secret had always been half Cookie's and half Lucious's. Not anymore. Now it was all on Cookie.

Cookie had betrayed Lucious twice in just a matter of weeks. Once when she told Malcolm - who was gracious enough to let her take it back - and again just hours after Lucious died, when she poured her heart out to Anika. Now Cookie was seconds away from telling Andre. Everything that Lucious had sacrificed was all about to go up in smoke because Cookie wasn't strong enough to carry this burden alone.

"...then came me," Andre was finishing. "Six pounds, four ounces. Two months premature." He gave his mother a tender smile. "Did I tell the story right, Mama?"

 _No, you weren't premature, Andre. You were another man's child. A child that Lucious raised without a word of complaint. A child that Lucious sacrificed his entire future for. He loved you like his own blood, Andre. He was so happy when he found out I was pregnant because it meant that he could marry me. Went right up to my mama and said "I'm Lucious Lyon, ma'am. I'm here to marry your daughter so we can raise our baby together..."_

"Mama, did you say something?"

Had she spoke those words out loud? Cookie looked up into Andre's face. He didn't look shocked, just a little concerned. "Can you get me some water?" she managed to get out. "With ice. Lots of ice."

"Crushed ice?" Andre asked, and Cookie just nodded. Her lips felt numb, and her throat was tight. She'd almost told. Oh, God, she'd almost told!

Andre walked over to the bed and kissed Cookie on her forehead. "You gonna be okay?" he asked, and Cookie nodded. "Okay. I'll be back. Don't fall asleep on me, okay?" He winked and left.

The minute Andre left, Cookie began to swallow over and over. The numbness that had struck Cookie's face was now spreading throughout her body, and her vision was beginning to blur. Cookie took one breath, then another, much shallower than the last. She heard her heart beating very fast, as if it was about to burst from her chest, and every beat hurt more than the last. Cookie tried to take a deeper breath, but the attempt plunged dagger-deep into Cookie's heart, and she didn't have the breath in her body to even cry out.

 _I'm dying._

Despite what the press would write later, Cookie didn't want to die. Cookie wanted to see her sons through their father's death. She wanted to see Andrea grow up. She wanted more grandchildren. Yes, Cookie would miss Lucious with every beat of her heart, but she could live without Lucious. She'd done so for 17 years under hellish conditions, after all.

But Cookie was just so...tired. She'd experienced so much pain and heartache in her fairly short life. The death of her father. The abuse at the hands of her once-beautiful and loving mother. The violence against her body as a young teen. The child marriage. The miserable poverty, the fear, the unfairness of everything. Motherhood. Miscarriage. Prison. Divorce. Betrayal. Hell, the mistreatment from Lucious alone from her prison years to just a couple of years ago should've killed Cookie long before now. And just when Lucious and Cookie were making things right - to each other, to themselves, to the community, even to their archenemies - Cookie had to experience the death of her soulmate.

Now Cookie had to carry the burden of the Lyon legacy for what...30 years? 40? Would there come another day when Cookie would tell the story yet again? Not to someone like Anika, but maybe to Rhonda, or Hakeem or Jamal? Or worst of all, to Andre, like she'd almost done? How would Andre feel knowing that he wasn't Lucious's blood-born son? It would kill him, just as the burden of knowing this and having to keep it secret for the rest of her life was killing her.

So rather than fight for her life, Cookie just waited. She waited until her breaths grew slower, her heartbeat fainter. Cookie grew dizzier and sleepier until she felt like she was floating, floating, though Cookie knew that she was dying, she wasn't afraid.

 _Lord, let thy will be done_.

The saddest part, Cookie thought as she closed her eyes for the last time, was that she knew the press would write about how Cookie died so that she could be with Lucious again. In reality, Cookie died to protect her oldest son. Even with an epilogue, the end of The Story of Lucious and Cookie was no truer than the rest of the Lyon myth.

* * *

When Hakeem swung by to see how Cookie was doing, he offered to take Cookie's water upstairs. Hakeem found his mother lying on her side with a tiny smile on her face, and he chose not to wake her. "Good night, Mama," he said tenderly, then kissed her on the cheek.

Something made Hakeem take a closer look. Cookie, who was a light sleeper by nature, didn't stir when Hakeem kissed her. In fact, everything about Cookie's body was unnaturally still. And she was asleep on her side, which was very unusual for Cookie. After 17 years in prison, Cookie naturally slept on her back. If she ever was to sleep on her side, she would've had her back to the wall, _never_ towards the door.

"Mama?" Hakeem said again, and his heart began to pound. He knew Cookie was okay. She had to be okay. Cookie was just sleeping hard, that's all. It had been a hard day. _Let Mama rest,_ Hakeem thought, and he turned to leave. Just then, Hakeem tripped over a box in the middle of the floor. Ice water flew from the cup and splashed onto Cookie's arm, but Cookie didn't move a muscle.

"Mama?" Hakeem set the cup of ice water down, and he shook Cookie again, a little harder. Still, his mother didn't stir. "Mama? _Mama?"_ Hakeem shook her again and again until Cookie fell onto her back and her eyes open, staring at nothing and into nowhere. _"Mama! **MAMA!"**_

On and on Hakeem screamed until he made no words at all, just sounds that brought Andre rushing up the stairs as Rhonda comforted a crying Andrea from downstairs. Andre came back downstairs alone. He said nothing, just sat at the foot of the stairs as Hakeem continued to wail. "It's Cookie, isn't it?" Rhonda asked tearfully, handing their daughter to him.

Andre only nodded, waiting until Rhonda went upstairs before he dropped his head in Andrea's shoulder and cried quietly. He would have to take up the reins yet again. Call 911, talk to the coroners, write the family statements, meet with the lawyers, plan a funeral service for _two_ people, not for one. Not only was Andre the man of the family now, he was the oldest surviving Lyon. Jamal would sit around somewhere writing songs. Hakeem would go snort coke off some stripper's ass. It was up to Andre. It was _always_ up to Andre, the oldest son of Lucious and Cookie Lyon, now _both_ gone.

"He took her," Hakeem wailed when Rhonda came to console her brother-in-law. "Lucious stole Mom from me _again!_ "

Rhonda swallowed back her own tears. "Oh, no, Hakeem. Don't look at it like that. Please, don't."

"He _took_ her!" Hakeem cried forcefully as Rhonda pulled a hysterical Hakeem into her arms. "He couldn't just leave my mama alone to grieve? He had to take her to his fucking _grave!?"_

"They're together, again, Hakeem," Andre said as he walked into the room, Andrea on his hip. He handed Andrea to Rhonda."C'mere, little brother." Andre took Hakeem into a firm embrace. "This isn't a time to be grieving," he scolded Hakeem, holding back his own tears. "Mom and Dad are together again, just the way it should be. Only this time, it's for eternity. That's cause for celebration, little brother, not for tears."

That was one way of seeing it, though Rhonda couldn't help but lean towards Hakeem's side - that Lucious was taking Cookie away and keeping her for himself, just as selfish in death as he was in life. And even if what Andre was saying was true, Rhonda thought, why did the Lyon brothers have to lose both of their parents on the same day? _Why?_

TBC


	9. Say Hallelujah

"What are you working on?" Malcolm asked Anika early Thursday morning. He expected Anika to sleep in late, but she'd been up for the past couple of hours working in the office. Anika did her most serious work in the large, cozy work room, where she could be alone with her thoughts. Other than Anika whistling "Waltzing Matilda" and the sound of keys clacking, the room was completely silent.

"I'm researching sushi restaurants," Anika answered, her eyes never leaving her laptop screen.

"Sushi restaurants? How come?"

"Because Cookie asked me yesterday if I could eat sushi since I'm pregnant." Anika smiled up at her unusually stoic husband. Unlike Anika, Malcolm was a morning person; he wasn't usually this quiet and still. "She's taking me out to lunch after I get back from the doctor tomorrow."

"You're going to lunch with Cookie tomorrow," Malcolm said slowly. It was a statement, not a question.

"We have some things to talk about. Some stuff that has to be addressed between us." When Anika checked her text messages that morning, she could hardly believe that Cookie had texted her about a place to eat on Friday. Cookie wasn't the only one who owed apologies. Elle Dallas. Beretti. Porsha. Hakeem. All the things Anika should have apologized for when Cookie came to see her yesterday were going to be addressed at tomorrow's lunch. Anika needed to make amends, just like Cookie had.

Anika noticed that Malcolm was slowly shaking his head, an unreadable expression on his face. "What's up?" Anika asked as she set her pencil down. Did Malcolm think that he was going to give her a hard time about going to lunch with Cookie? Or worse, was he going to try to say she couldn't go? Nothing was going to stop Anika from going to lunch with Cookie, no matter how Malcolm felt about it. "I know you think I'm crazy, Malcolm, but I'm pretty sure our catfighting days are behind us-"

"Anika..." Something in Malcolm's voice and his demeanor made Anika stop talking. "I just got off the phone with Rhonda Lyon. Baby..." Malcolm took a deep breath, exhaling slowly before he spoke again. "Cookie died in her sleep last night."

Anika heard her husband's words, but they made no sense. "Come again?"

"Cookie died in her sleep last night," Malcolm repeated. He swallowed a lump in his throat as he said the words a second time. "Rhonda called me after she couldn't get in touch with you. I guess Cookie still had my number in her old contacts or something. It wasn't a suicide or anything like that. They think it might've been a pre-existing condition...maybe a heart attack or something."

"Malcolm." Anika set her pencil down and stood on shaky legs. "I know you don't like Cookie, but this isn't funny."

"I'm not joking, Anika." Malcolm looked away, blinking rapidly. He'd be damned if he shed tears for his ex-lover in front of his wife. "Rhonda said that the last thing Cookie asked for was ice water from Andre. When Hakeem took the water upstairs a few minutes later, Cookie was already dead. She just went to sleep and never woke up again - where are you going?" Malcolm asked as Anika left the office without a word.

"To the hospital," Anika called over her shoulder.

"The hospital?" Malcolm followed Anika down the hall and into the bedroom, where Anika was changing out of her bathrobe into a comfortable pair of sweats. "For what?"

"To see Cookie," Anika answered, as if she was talking to a small child. "I mean, 46 is pretty early to have a heart attack, and I'm sure she's okay-"

Malcolm's shoulders sagged. "Anika," he said sadly.

"-but I just want to make sure she's alright. We're going out for sushi on Friday. Wait, I already told you that, didn't I?"

"Yes...you did," Malcolm said when Anika waited for a response. "But Anika-"

"Or at least we were going. We can't go now, obviously, with her heart attack and everything." Anika couldn't stop talking. She had to fill the silence. "So I'm going to swing by and make sure Cookie's okay."

"Anika. Listen to me." Malcolm reached for Anika, who snatched her hand away as she looked around for some shoes. "I'm not much of a fish eater, you know," she rambled on, "but I remember Cookie used to eat that stuff by the pound." Anika laughed, but it felt forced. "I wonder if I can sneak some in for her? That hospital food must be terrible, I'm sure."

"Anika..." Malcolm tried again.

"Then again, that kind of food might not be good for her heart-"

"Anika." Malcolm's patience was beginning to wear thin.

"But not eating isn't very good, either," Anika continued thoughtfully. "So I guess the question is whether it's better for Cookie to be eating unhealthy food or eating nothing at all." With shoes on and purse in hand, Anika finally looked over at her husband, who was staring at her strangely. "What do you think, baby?"

"Anika." Malcolm closed his eyes and pursed his lips, wondering if he hadn't made himself clear. "Cookie is dead, sweetheart. She died in her sleep last night."

"You've got it all wrong, Malcolm. Lucious died yesterday, sweetie," she corrected. "Cookie came and told me. And...and we talked, and-and-and...we're going out to eat on Friday. I mean, we were going out to eat..."

"Anika. Please." Malcolm crossed the room and tried to still his wife's busy feet. "Later, Malcolm," Anika promised, brushing Malcolm aside. "I'll be back in just a little while."

"Anika. No." Malcolm didn't stop his wife from leaving the bedroom, as he didn't want to physically restrain her. But he had no intentions of allowing Anika to continue this bizarre, macabre behavior. "Anika, Cookie isn't at the hospital. Are you listening to me at all?"

"I have to go..." Anika said again, bewildered.

"There's nowhere for you to go, Anika," Malcolm explained patiently. "Cookie is dead."

Anika slapped Malcolm across the face. _"Shut up!_ Stop saying that!" she demanded. "Cookie's not dead! She's not!" Malcolm grabbed Anika as she swung at Malcolm again and again. "We're going out to eat on Friday! _We're going to eat sushi and talk about poetry! She's_ _ **not**_ _dead! She's not..."_

"Anika...Anika..." Somehow, Malcolm was able to get Anika under control. "She's not dead," Anika wept. "Oh, God...please tell me this isn't real..." He guided her to bed, where Anika cried herself to sleep. "I never got to tell her I'm sorry," Anika wept.

"I'm sure she knew," Malcolm soothed his wife, but it didn't make Anika feel any better.

Three times Anika woke up and looked to her husband for conformation, and three times Malcolm nodded sadly. The answer was always the same. When Anika finally turned on the news and saw a picture of Lucious and Cookie's second wedding, she knew that Lucious and Cookie were both gone forever - or were together forever, depending on how a person looked at it.

* * *

Malcolm's place in music history was bad enough when he officially became the murderer of Lucious Lyon. But with the brokenhearted death of his wife the very same day, Malcolm and Anika began to plan to move to Anika's home in Cayman. Strangely, Malcolm and Anika had support in the most surprising of places: the Lyon family.

 _To our Empire family:_

 _We are grateful for the many condolences and well-wishes bestowed upon us from friends, family and fans. In the wake of the deaths of Lucious and Cookie Lyon, there have been a number of concerns that the family believes that we need to address._

 _Many people have stated that our mother died of a broken heart. However, we like to think that our mother, who made our father Lucious the best man he could ever be, was rewarded with a seat by our father's side in heaven._ _Furthermore, we wish to remind the fans, the media and everyone else that there were no drugs, no alcohol and no medication of any kind in the body of our mother, Cookie. W_ _e wish to make it clear that Cookie Lyon did_ _ **not**_ _commit suicide out of grief for our father. To suggest otherwise does our family a disservice._

 _Additionally,_ _ **the Lyon family loudly denounces any type of harassment, abuse or violence against the family of Malcolm DeVeaux**_ _. As determined by the doctors and agreed upon by the law, our father Lucious's death was a tragic accident, nothing more. In the final days of our father's life, the Lyons and the DeVeauxs made peace and extended forgiveness to one another. The Lyon family also extends our apologies to the DeVeaux family for this long overdue statement. We wish the DeVeauxs all the blessings that God can bestow upon them._

 _To any Lyon fans who want to maim and cripple and destroy in the name of our mother and father, we have this to say to you: do not buy our music, attend our concerts or follow us on social media. Do not let our names pass your lips._ _Lucious and Cookie Lyon never condoned retaliation against innocent people, and neither do we. If you are a fan of Empire Enterprises honor the memories of our mother and father by_ _ **not**_ _participating in destructive behavior or spreading malicious gossip._

 _Finally, for those of you still grieving for the loss of our parents, take a page from the legendary Tracy Chapman and_ _ **SAY HALLELUJAH!**_ _One of music's greatest love affairs has an ending that many of us can only dream of. Lucious and Cookie Lyon are together again until the end of time. What could be better than that?_

 _Sincerely,  
Andre, Jamal and Hakeem Lyon_

Slowly, over the months, the public's hatred for Malcolm began to fade, and the world began to celebrate the lives of Cookie and Lucious, rather than mourning their deaths. In the meantime, Anika continued to teach at LaGuardia, while Malcolm returned to Columbia University in the spring semester. Little by little, Malcolm and Anika's lives went back to normal, and the two of them prepared for the birth of their first child, who was due at the end of May. Still, Anika silently grieved that she would never get the opportunity to tell Cookie that she was sorry...or so she thought.

* * *

Shortly before the end of the school year, Anika received a phone call from a small, unnamed post office box. The office was closing, the manager explained, and would be relocated to another side of town. "Would you like to pick up your possessions or have them transferred over to the new store, or will you be picking them up?"

"I'm sorry, there's been a mistake," Anika answered. "I don't have a safe deposit box at your store."

"No, ma'am...to the contrary. It appears that there is a package for you that was brought here by...let's see...ah, yes. Loretha Lyon."

 _"Cookie?"_ Anika's heart jumped in her throat as the manager informed her that the safe deposit box was opened the very day Cookie died. There were a number of things that had to be distributed, and one of the things that was to be turned over to Anika Calhoun DeVeaux in the event of Cookie's death was whatever was in the box.

It was a Friday, and Anika had three choices: come to pick the box up in a small New York down two hours away or have the box overnighted - which wouldn't reach her until Monday, as it was Saturday morning. Anika called Malcolm and asked him to pick the box up after work. At a quarter to five, Anika received another call from the post office box: Malcolm could not pick up the box. Anika had to be present, and she had to produce a government ID.

After nearly an hour of arguing and begging, the box was released to Malcolm after Anika faxed over two forms of ID, her marriage license and a copy of the faxed form varifying that the box had been released into her husband's care. "What did Cookie will you?" Malcolm asked as he drove home. "The contents of Ft. Knox?"

"I have no idea." Just hearing Cookie's name made Anika's heart race. Everything had finally started to die down. She could hear an Empire song on the radio without breaking into hives. Now this. Anika couldn't imagine anything that Cookie owned that she would want Anika to have.

"Do you want me to stay here with you while you open it?" Malcolm asked, lugging a medium-sized box into Anika's office. "Or do you want to open it by yourself?"

"I want to be alone for now." Anika kissed Malcolm's cheek. "I'll call you back in, I promise."

Alone, Anika held her breath as she carefully ran her letter opener down the mailing tape holding the box shut. She opened the box only to find more boxes. Anika took out the smallest box - a shoebox - cut the tape and lifted the lid. When she saw what was inside, Anika let out a small shriek and threw it on the floor, her heart pounding wildly.

"Anika!" Malcolm rushed into the room. "Baby, are you okay?"

"Yes! Yes, everything is fine. Just...give me a minute, okay?" Taking another deep breath, Anika lowered herself to the floor, though she had no idea how she was going to get back up. With trembling hands, Anika opened the shoe box again. It was full to overflowing with letters, pictures, postcards and scribbled notes.

There was also a sealed envelope with Anika's name in Cookie's beautiful, swirly handwriting. Inside was a letter, written on the day of Cookie and Lucious's separate deaths.

 _Dear Anika,_

 _If you're reading this, then two things happened. One, I'm dead. Two, I haven't had anything changed from the day Lucious died._

 _After our conversation in your classroom, I can't tell you how much better I felt. There were things you know about me that I never told a soul, including my husband or my sisters. Even though it makes me nervous that you know the things that you know (honestly, I have no idea why I told you), I know deep down that you would never betray my confidence. That's why I believe that you are the only person I can trust to do what I'm about to ask you to do._

 _I'm leaving you all of my writings - my diaries, my letters from prison, my drawings...just about everything I ever put a pen to._ _If I die before writing my book, I want you to be the one to tell my story. Not THE Story, MY story._ _As of today, you're the only person I trust to set things right._

 _Maybe you'll take this time to get revenge on me and tell my sons everything I told you or let them read my secrets. I wouldn't be able to stop you. But I don't think you're that kind of person. I think you're the kind of person who can read my thoughts and know what to tell and what not to tell. There are lots of things I should probably go and cross out, but I'm just too tired to do it right now._

 _I can understand why you wouldn't want to be bothered with a thing like this. I really don't have the right to ask you to, considering our past. Feel free to destroy everything in this box. But I hope that you can understand why this is so urgent and so serious to me that I am writing this just a couple of hours after our lunch together. If you're reading this, that means that out of all the people in the world, you're still the only person that I trust to know my innermost thoughts and my true history._ _If you decide to do this for me, I know you'll do me and my family right._

 _God would have been kind if He had given me a woman like you for a daughter.  
CL_

Anika was sobbing by the end of Cookie's letter. Of course Cookie hadn't met anybody she trusted after having lunch with Anika - she'd died just a few hours later. _Why me?_ she thought miserably. Why not her sons or her sisters? "Anika?" Malcolm called again, and when she didn't send him away, he came in. "What's wrong, baby? What did she leave you?"

"Her legacy," Anika whispered, numb. "Cookie left me her legacy."

Malcolm frowned. "Come again?"

"Her writings," Anika clarified, wiping her eyes and handing Malcolm the letter Cookie wrote. "Her journals, letters...she wants me to tell her story. _Her_ story, Malcolm, not _The_ Story."

Malcolm read Anika's letter and chose his words carefully. "Beautiful words," he said, and meant it. "But...don't take this the wrong way...why you?"

"Because there are some things that only the two of us know, having been in a relationship with Lucious," Anika answered. "That, and Cookie couldn't have meant this. If she had lived, she would've changed this, I know she would have."

"But she didn't live," Malcolm pointed out. "And you've always been sad because you never got to tell Cookie you were sorry for everything that had happened. Maybe..." Malcolm joined Anika on the floor. "Maybe this is your chance." Anika laid her head in Malcolm's lap as he continued. "You don't have to do anything, Anika. You can always turn everything over to the family. Or you can destroy it and make sure no one ever reads it."

"What do you think I should do?"

Malcolm thought it over. "Well, you've got summer break, minus your training and stuff. And you're pretty much free until the baby is born. I would look over the contents in the box before I committed myself to anything. And if I were you, I wouldn't tell anybody that you have Cookie's stuff, especially not her family. This is going to be enough of a headache without them going crazy because Cookie left her stuff to you."

* * *

Cookie's diaries were carefully written. Not even in her most private thoughts did she ever mention that there had been another man in her life before Lucious, or even that she'd dreamed of a different life. Rather, Cookie's diaries began from the time she moved away from her old neighborhood. Had Cookie not been a music producer, she would've been an excellent writer.

Anika wished that she could highlight Cookie's brilliant education, but Malcolm advised against it. "If you go too far into the past," he warned, "people might figure out that Cookie Holloway plus Lucious Lyon doesn't equal Andre Lyon."

So Malcolm knew. For some reason, that didn't surprise Anika. They never spoke of it again.

There wasn't much to change in Cookie's writings, save for sentence structure and punctuation. For the most part, Anika let Cookie's words speak for themselves. Parts of Cookie's diaries expressed her deep love for a man - a boy, really - that she had given up so much for. They also went into great detail about Cookie and Lucious's marriage, and how much Lucious sacrificed as well.

Other sections waxed poetic about the love Cookie had for her sons. Despite their ages, Lucious and Cookie were homebodies, preferring nights at home with their sons than hanging out on the streets. Cookie loved being a wife and mother, and her joy was expressed all over the pages. Other times, fear was expressed in a lot of Cookie's writings. She was terrified of being in the drug game, constantly writing about wanting a better life for her family. _I'd do anything to get out of this. If I could do one thing over again, I would've stayed in school. Somehow, I would've tried to come up with a way to make it work...the worst thing I ever did in my life was drop out of high school._

Sometimes, Cookie's writings were very dark, specifically around the time Hakeem was born. Cookie's words and doodles strongly suggested that she suffered from postpartum depression, something that had no name back in the early 1990's. It pained Anika to think about Cookie's sons reading how sad Cookie was around that time, especially Hakeem. But it wouldn't have been right to remove the pages. If the boys decided to publish their mother's diaries, recollections like these might help other women and families understand what so many people dismissed as "baby blues".

As Anika's due date came closer and closer, she cried often, overwhelmed by the task Cookie had put in front of her. "I'm gonna have a nervous breakdown," she told Malcolm one day. "Why is she trusting me to do this?" When she wasn't sifting through the thoughts of a dope dealer's wife turned dope dealer herself, she went through her notes and scanned photos, letters and drawings.

"Anika, even the Lord took a day off," Malcolm chided one Sunday when Anika was in her office for three hours straight. But Anika knew she couldn't make a decision about what to do until she'd gone through every page, read every letter and saw every picture. To Anika's relief, most of Cookie's diaries and all of her drawings could be turned over to the Lyon family with no issues, something Malcolm agreed was the right thing to do. Anika couldn't face Cookie and Lucious's family with the writings she'd had for weeks, so she chose to mail a package instead.

 _Dear Andre, Rhonda, Jamal, Hakeem and little Andrea,_

 _On the day your mother died, she opened up a safe deposit box and left me her writings. I'm enclosing a copy of the declaration. My guess is that Cookie did this on a whim. Had she not died the same night, I'm pretty sure the writings would have been turned over to Rhonda or one of Cookie's sisters._

 _Cookie wants me to tell her story (not The Story), but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing that on my own. I want the input of her family, the blessings of her sons. I'm turning over her writings to you to make the final decision. How about it, boys? Do you want to work together to get your mother's words out there? I was thinking that maybe we could just start with the first couple of diaries, the ones that go over her life prior to prison. Let me know what you think._

 _God bless,  
ACD_

"I'll take it right now," Malcolm offered. He was gone barely 20 minutes before Anika went into labor on the living room floor. Anika was anxious, but for some reason, she wasn't afraid. She could practically feel Cookie's hand on her back, convincing her to stay calm. _"Breathe deep, stay calm...there you go."_ She could imagine Lucious encouraging her to stay strong with his sparkling green eyes. By the time Malcolm came home from the post office, Anika was already being loaded into an ambulance, singing a lullaby as their little girl drifted off to sleep.

 _"Waltzing Matilda, waltzing Matilda,  
You'll come a-waltzing Matilda with me..." _

Gazing down at her new daughter, Anika knew that Cookie and Lucious's story was just as pertinent to her as any child growing up in the ghetto. Anika wanted her to know about it when it was time to know about it. Maybe it would be in a best-selling novel, or maybe it would be from her memory alone. But her child would know about Lucious and Cookie.

"One day, sweet baby girl," Anika whispered to her daughter, "you'll learn about a love that was so pure and so true that not even death could put a stop to it. You'll learn about the love from a woman that was so strong that it redeemed a wonderful man, a man who gave up his entire future to raise a son that he didn't have to."

"He couldn't exist without her," Malcolm added, walking into the room with roses for his wife and sunflowers for his new daughter. "She knew that, if you ask me. Cookie guided Lucious to heaven, then she went and joined him to make sure he'd stay there. Say hallelujah."

"Hallelujah," Anika agreed, and she tilted her chin to exchange a kiss with her husband. "Would you want our love to be like that, Malcolm? Would you want the two of us to die like Lucious and Cookie did?"

Malcolm shook his head. "If anything happens to me, I'd want you to move on. Find someone else to love and raise our daughter. We can't all have a love like Lucious and Cookie, and if if they were here, they would probably encourage us not to try."

Malcolm carefully took their child from Anika's arms. "You know, Lucious told me that he hoped we had a daughter. He said that I'm the kind of man that should be raising daughters." Malcolm kissed his daughter on the cheek. "If our little girl is half the woman Cookie Lyon was, we will have done one hell of a job raising her."

Her name was Matilda Grace DeVeaux, but Malcolm and Anika called her Cookie. That way, they could honor Lucious and Cookie's love every time they said their daughter's name.

END


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